Journal of Charles Kirkliston Gibb

Saturday, 15th July 1809

It is now more than a fortnight since I came to the glen, and a week since I last wrote here. The weather turned to heavy rain again, that first weekend of my sojourn. As I have already written, I stayed away from church on the Sunday and was not condemned for it. The Baron, his wife and daughter and the rest of the household went, and came back very bedraggled about midday. The weather being as it was, there was no possibility of a visit to the cave.

On the following few days I sat undisturbed in the library from after breakfast until late in the afternoon, drawing imitations of the folios, transcribing the Latin and, on separate sheets, making a rough translation. My progress was rapid − too rapid if I were to remain here all summer − and in order to slow down I regularly left the desk in order to find something on the shelves to distract me from my task. Indeed this has been both ploy and principle during the whole of the fortnight − to find diversions in the library and elsewhere.

On one occasion, the Baron himself colluded in my time-wasting − unwittingly, I assume, although it is not always easy to determine if conscious purpose lies behind his actions. A parcel of new books arrived from Edinburgh and he brought them to me with something like humility, as if I were the keeper of the library and he my assistant. Three items were enclosed: a long poem by Thomas Campbell called Gertrude of Wyoming; the first number of a new periodical, the Quarterly Review (which I heard some time ago was to be established in London to counter the Reformist influence of the Edinburgh Review); and Bibliomania, or Book-Madness, a Biographical Romance by one Thomas Frognall Dibdin, a Doctor of Divinity. Glen Conach was at a loss to explain why he had ordered this selection and thought that the bookseller had made a mistake. I suggested that the books might have been sent on approval and could be returned if not desired.

‘That is possible, Mr Gibb,’ he replied. ‘Certainly it is possible as far as this new journal is concerned. Or I may have subscribed for all of them by accident, thinking I was subscribing for something else − it would not be the first time. Or Mr Haddow may have mentioned them to me, I really cannot say. I have asked my wife to explain it and she said she could not as she does not know what goes on in my head, which is true, she does not, any more than I know what goes on in Mr Haddow’s. I must break the subscribing habit − it is very costly. Well, well, for now I will take this Gertrude away. I know some of Mr Campbell’s work − The Pleasures of Hope is a fine poem. I leave you the Review and this other slim volume, which may be a joke of some kind, if this is representative: “In laying before the public blah blah an account of a disease which blah blah has entirely escaped the sagacity of all physicians …” You decide, Mr Gibb, you are the scholar among us. Or hand it to Mr Haddow − it will kill or cure him. How are your labours?’

But he swept out again without waiting for a reply, and I spent the rest of that day reading the Quarterly Review, which was good despite its being very Tory. My host should find it to his liking. I skimmed over Dr Dibdin’s treatise, which is satirical after a fashion, but tedious even though short.

To become more familiar with the house and its grounds has been my other business, and this I have accomplished to the extent that I feel as much at home here as I have anywhere in the last few years. Being long practised in the skill of not drawing attention to myself, I have moved quietly and watched carefully, trying this door and that passageway until I know where everybody sleeps, sits, works, prepares food or consumes it; who is likely to be where at different times of day; who speaks much, and who is mostly silent; which rooms are warmer, which draughtier, and so on. I have observed how the Baron goes out bareheaded in sunshine, rain or wind, sometimes with his dogs, sometimes without, and hardly seems to notice, let alone care, what the weather is doing. He walks over to the clachan at least once a day, but for what reason he is so regularly drawn there I have yet to discover. Elspeth Carnegie too goes back and forth along the same route on her visits to her grandmother. Perhaps there is something secret between the laird and his handmaiden, but I think not: it would be impossible to conceal for long, and I cannot think that Lady Glen Conach would tolerate it. Elspeth continues to act with an impunity that none of the other servants enjoys. I have noticed how she wears shoes in the house but casts them off when she steps outside, as if she wants to rise above her station but cannot endure any consequent discomfort for long. Norah the kitchen maid, by contrast, never wears shoes indoors or out, and quite possibly does not have any.

What else have I learned? That Elspeth and Norah share a room and a bed under the baulks (I slipped up the narrow attic stair in order to establish this). That Kate Nicol sleeps over the stable with her man, Davie. That one of Davie’s daily chores is to go through the house emptying the chamber pots and adding the contents to a midden, which consists also of horse dung, situated at a good distance from the house. That two men come in most days from the clachan to work among the vegetable and flower beds, and one of their tasks is to dig this waste into the garden soil. That there are three horses kept in a paddock behind the stables, sturdy white garrons with thick necks and broad rumps. My horse knowledge is small and they look to me like rough, bad-tempered creatures, and whether they can be either ridden or persuaded to pull the two-wheeled cart in the stable, or are good only for hauling timber and bringing game off the hill, I have no idea. (Mr Dunning has an old nag, but that appears to be the sum total of horse ownership in the glen.)

Then there are the habits and habitat of the Milne family. To ascertain what these are, I have discreetly entered and inspected each of their chambers at a time not inconvenient to the occupant − that is, when he or she was out. I am especially keen to see what Jessie has written about me in her journal but on two separate visits I have been unable to locate that volume among the clothing, bits of needlework, books, papers and other items scattered about her bedroom. I have put my head round the Baron’s door and found his room as windswept as the Baron himself, partly because a stick has been used to wedge the window open, thus ensuring a permanent blast of fresh air. He and his wife keep separate bedrooms, an unusual arrangement in most houses with which I am acquainted, and which I think must be due, in part, to the incompatibility of their habits of tidiness. The Baroness’s room, next door to his, is neat and ordered, a reflection of her character. I am not so far aware of any night-time trade between the two. Next door again is Alexander’s room, very sparse and soldierly, though perhaps his mother is responsible for keeping it that way. The one thing common to all these rooms, ignoring the chaotic condition of the Baron’s and Jessie’s, is what little they contain: a bed, a chest or two, a press, a mirror, a pitcher, a basin, chamber pots (the ladies, like me, have commodes, a luxury I assume the Baron disdains), some grooming items, a few pictures and tapestries on the walls, some rugs over the rough floorboards; nowhere an abundance of clothes, and those they possess all old and well used. Mr Milne, I conclude, may be a baron but he is not a wealthy one, and I do not wonder that he is reluctant to expose his family to the outrageous extravagances of Edinburgh.

One bright afternoon this week − I think it was Wednesday, but the days merge one into another so it may have been Thursday − I took advantage of the sunshine and strolled over to the clachan. It consists of two dozen cottages spilled across the low land near the river; their walls are built of random stone, and peat smoke issues from open holes in their turf roofs. At a slight distance from this metropolis stand the schoolhouse, the kirk and the manse. Children of various sizes, dirt-clad from tousled head to naked foot, came at me from every direction, clamouring in a dialect which I struggled to interpret. I could not decide whether they were expressing curiosity, hostility or a mixture of both. Some of these infants were barely able to walk by themselves, others were carried inexpertly by their slightly larger siblings. Hens and geese wandered freely; I saw two very scarred and mangy cats, the one disputing the right of the other to cross its domain; further off I could see boys herding dark, hairy cattle up to the higher ground, away from the crops in the enclosed parks. On the distant slopes were numerous greyish dabs which I at first mistook for stones but which were, in fact, sheep.

At the door of one of the cottages an old man sat on a stool; at another, three women of indeterminate age stood watching me. I nodded at them as I passed, but they made no acknowledgement in reply until my heel slipped on some sharn and I was nearly pitched on my back. This entertained them greatly, as if the disadvantage of wearing boots were proved beyond a doubt. The children, who also found my narrow escape amusing, followed a few yards behind me until I had got beyond the last cottage and was making towards the schoolhouse, kirk and manse, when they fell away, as if they had done their duty in seeing me out of their jurisdiction, and returned to their playing and shouting.

From afar, the clachan might be a setting for The Gentle Shepherd; an Arcadian idyll, in other words. Close to, it looks rather as if one failed harvest could topple it into destitution. I do not see how the glen can sustain its present population. There are few young men here. The Baron spoke to me of men going off to join the army, but how much of a soldier’s pay finds its way home? What if more men stayed in the glen? Would there be work for them, or would they simply have to go somewhere else and find a new way to live, perchance to live better? And where would they go? To the towns, to the seaports, to the manufactories springing up everywhere, to the Americas? And when they do return, whole or maimed, what then for these soldiers? And if they never return? Who will then care for the children and the old people? The women of the clachan appear hardened against life but also bowed down by it. What is it, to be alive in this place? Is it only to be not yet dead?

Tuesday, 18th July 1809

Having written the above, I almost scratched it out, but have left it. It was my old fear of being found out, rising again. I too have learned the game of survival, though the rules are different for me. It is a game at which we all play, some more knowingly than others, but play it we must. The winners are those who cheat poverty, pain and death the longest.

I paused outside the schoolhouse. This is not a grand edifice. It is all on a level. There is a long room at one end with two shuttered windows, not in very good condition: this is the schoolroom. Adjoined to it is a much smaller, more humble part, which is the quarters of the dominie. The roof is of thatch and a stone chimney rises in the middle, serving two fireplaces, one in the schoolroom and one in Mr Haddow’s accommodation.

I peered in through a window of the schoolroom. There was Mr Haddow, with half a dozen older children in a row in front of him. I could not hear what Haddow was saying, but his pupils were all upright and apparently attentive. No doubt had I chosen to enter he would have welcomed me and had his monkeys perform their tricks for me. But what can he say to them that will change their lives one bit? If he tells them to think for themselves, will they not become dissatisfied with their lot and leave the glen as soon as they can? If he tells them to be docile and obedient, what is the point of teaching them at all? If he teaches them numbers and words and puts ideas in their heads, does he make the world seem a better place or only awaken them to the poverty of their existence? These gloomy thoughts make me think of my father. What did he intend for the children in his care? I doubt even my mother would be able to tell me.

Mr Haddow talked on. I did not enter the schoolroom, but quietly investigated his accommodation instead. This appears to consist of two halves, a snug area by the fireplace separated from his sleeping chamber by a thin partition. Both are clean and well ordered. I know not if any woman from the clachan assists him in keeping house, but there is little to suggest that he leads anything but a quiet, rigorous and solitary life. Likewise I am not sure how he subsists when he is not dining at the big house, except that it must be sparingly.

I gave thanks that I was not condemned to such an existence, and that I had made it a law to myself that I never would be, and continued my walk.

The kirk is a low, narrow thing, like some ancient creature crouched in sleep. It is two hundred years old, according to the Baron. The stone tiles of the roof ripple below the twisted spine, as if their weight is almost too much for it to bear. The bellcote resembles a horn and the arched door a closed mouth. In each side wall there are five very small, very grimy windows, which must allow only a dim light into the interior on winter days. The lack of furnishings inside is remarkable. Near the front are three short pews on either side of a narrow aisle, but the rest of the space is open: most of the congregation must either stand for the duration of a service or bring their own seats. Beyond the pews the floor is flagged, but behind them it is of earth. There is a stone font, a low table, a lectern on which rests a large Bible, and a dark, wooden pulpit like a tiny pavilion or summerhouse, with a flat roof and a short spiral staircase leading up to it. It looks hardly big enough to contain Mr Dunning, certainly not if he gesticulates much when preaching. I don’t imagine that he is the gesticulating sort.

The kirk is the simplest I think I have ever been in, in a land renowned for the austerity of its temples. Even on such a warm day, it was cold enough to make me shiver. Nevertheless, I did not dislike being there. Alone in its silent gloom, I felt quite cut off from the outside world. I waited a minute, breathing so shallowly that I could not even hear evidence of my own vitality. Then I stepped back into the afternoon.

The mossy, uneven graveyard is enclosed by a low stone wall that cannot be much of an impediment to grazing animals. Most of the marker stones are uninscribed or their legends unreadable, and so weathered that they resemble humped, headless bodies buried upright in the turf. I deciphered a few dates, the oldest I could find being 1690. One of the most recent stones, modest in size and inconspicuously placed (I came upon it by chance), bears the name ‘Eliza Anne Dunning’ and the brief information that she was born in 1776, was the cherished wife of John Dunning, minister of this parish, and was taken into God’s everlasting care on 15th April 1805.

There is an area, separated from the rest by a rail, where I discerned, from the names and dates carved on a slab of red sandstone adjacent to it, that several Milnes are interred. I picked out the Baron’s grandfather Alexander and his father, Francis, and their spouses, and their children (most of whom did not survive infancy). The Baron’s father, also Alexander − he who finally turned against the Acquaintance and Mr Riddell − lies there too. No wife shares his pre-resurrection sleep; in fact, the stone bears no mention of her, or indeed of their son. This seems very curious. I believe I am missing some obvious explanation.

Not far away I found the lair of ‘old Mr Gillespie’, Mr Dunning’s predecessor. The flat stone under which he lies is one of very few that are clearly legible. I memorised the inscription and reproduce it here:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF

DAVID GILLESPIE

BELOVED OF THE PEOPLE

OF GLEN CONACH

WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE 20TH JULY 1790

IN THE 75TH YR OF HIS AGE AND THE 47TH YR

OF HIS MINISTRY IN THIS PARISH

By my calculation, Gillespie was minister when the present Baron’s grandfather was alive, and during the Rising of ’45. He must have baptised the Baron, buried his grandfather and father, and baptised Sandy and Jessie too. He died the year after Glen Conach inherited from his father. Mr Haddow will have known him.

I moved on again. There was only one building left − the manse − before I must either return the way I had come or find another route back to the big house.

Yet ‘manse’ is too grand a word. Some manses I have seen − and some I have stayed in − are three times its size and ten times better appointed. I daresay this is a reflection on the impecuniousness of the patron, or in fact of his father, for the manse was (I have learned) erected some forty years ago when Mr Gillespie was the minister. It is stone-built, with a slated roof, and has two storeys, but much more than that cannot be said in its favour. It has no grace nor does it look settled in the landscape but rather as if it has been dropped accidentally by somebody who meant to put it somewhere else. It is a narrow, shallow, squat, mean house. Its architecture is very simple, and easily discerned: there are two rooms upstairs, crammed under the eaves, and two downstairs, with a scullery stuck on at the rear.

A bony old horse was tearing feebly at the tough grass nearby, giving no impression of either pleasure or purpose as it ate. This beast presumably transports Dunning to some of the more remote members of his congregation should he ever deign to visit them, but I think it might be quicker, safer and more comfortable to walk.

The sashes of all four windows were open, but the front door was shut. I was about to pass on when I heard a dull yet vigorous and repeated thudding sound close at hand. It seemed to come from within the house, and to my ears had something of a violent tone, as if a beating were being administered. It is one thing to stop one’s ears and pass by on the other side of a crowded Edinburgh street; quite another to ignore such a noise in a quiet spot such as Glen Conach. I walked up the path and knocked loudly.

Nothing happened. I knocked again and called out to ask if all was well. The thudding sound ceased, so I knew that I was noticed, but again nobody came to the door. ‘Are you there?’ I shouted − a ludicrous inquiry, but I fancied I heard whispering and scurrying noises. Another minute passed. Scarcely satisfied, but at least hopeful that a murder was not being committed (although it was possible that one just had been), I turned to walk on. As I did so a skinny, flushed, bare-armed lass with her hair tied back in a cloth, and in possession of a mighty clothes-beetle, poked her head round the end of the house.

‘Was that you chappin?’ she asked breathlessly.

I looked about me, as if to check whether it could have been anybody else, then admitted my guilt. The damsel, whose dress was somewhat at odds with decorum, was not impressed by my attempt at levity. The following exchange occurred.

‘Weel, whit for were ye makkin sic a din?’

‘Because you did not come to the door.’

‘Whit for wid I come to the door? I was thrang wi the washin oot the back.’

‘I knocked to attract somebody’s attention.’

‘Attention? Wha was to tak tent o ye?’

‘Well, you, as it happens.’

‘But I was oot the back. I didna hear ye.’

‘That is my point.’

‘Eh?’

‘I knocked twice because nobody came.’

‘Naebody came?’ she screeched, evidently astonished. ‘Weel, whit for did ye keep chappin?’

‘That is the normal procedure. One knocks at a door, and in due course somebody comes to open it.’

‘That isna normal. Ye jist walk in or ye gang awa. But ye’re here noo. Whit is it ye’re wantin?’

‘I have come to pay my respects.’

‘Is somebody deid?’

‘I mean, to Mr Dunning.’

‘Is he expectin ye?’

‘No, but as I was passing by I thought to call on him.’

‘But ye said he’s no expectin ye.’

‘He can hardly expect visitors here, surely? Should I have left my card beforehand?’

‘Eh?’

‘Is he at home?’

A wily look came upon her countenance.

‘He micht be.’

I tried again.

‘Perhaps you could tell him I am here.’

‘Whit for?’

We were not making progress. I tried another tack. ‘What is your name?’

‘Whit for d’ye want to ken my name?’

‘I thought that if I addressed you by it I might melt your heart.’ She returned me a look from which it was plain to see that such gentle sarcasm was wasted on her. ‘Mine is Charles Gibb. Please tell your master I am here. I am staying at the big house.’

‘Weel, a’body kens that,’ she said, rolling her eyes heavenward. Seeking to assure her of my good intentions I took a step towards her, but she seemed to interpret this as preparation for invasion and raised the beetle like a battleaxe. I could not but admire her determination to block me even with physical force. This proved unnecessary, however, as another figure appeared around the house-end, in an open, loose shirt with the sleeves rolled above his elbows. His brow and ample beard were wet with either sweat or water, and his chest was black with hair. This was Mr John Dunning, the minister. He was not in a good temper.

‘What keeps you, Mary?’ he said. ‘You have not yet hung out all the sheets.’ Then, laying eyes on me, he added with exaggerated surprise: ‘Why, Mr Gibb! What brings you here, Sir?’

‘He’s come to visit ye,’ Mary said helpfully. ‘But I widna let him by in case ye werna in.’

‘Away you go, lass. Quickly now. I will attend to the gentleman. You find me ill-prepared, Mr Gibb. My housekeeper and I are engaged in a washing of all the bedlinen.’

As she went past her master, I had a sudden, unannounced vision of them as a couple − coupling, in fact − the flabby cleric and bony Mary. I wondered how I could have been such a fool in my persistence, for it seemed obvious to me now that I had interrupted something other than a washing. There was a predatory look about Dunning, the same goatish leer he had let slide over Jessie Milne at dinner, that was most disturbing. This was the main reason, apart from a complete lack of faith, why I had not been to church on my first Sunday, nor intended to go at all if I could avoid it: I could not bear the prospect of being preached at by such a man.

Mr Dunning was quick to make a thrust at me for non-attendance.

‘I am surprised that you wish to see me, even on a weekday,’ he said. ‘Do you come on a matter of conscience, or something less weighty?’

‘I happened to be out for a walk,’ I replied. ‘I did not mean to intrude, but I heard a noise and that was why I knocked.’

As soon as I said this I remembered the thumping sound, and now it seemed more like a headboard in repeated contact with a wall than anything else. Mr Dunning sensed my discomfiture and pounced upon it.

‘I thought,’ he said, ‘you did not mean to intrude.’

‘I was concerned,’ I answered, ‘that somebody might need assistance.’

‘I assure you, nobody did.’ He made what seemed a supreme effort to be gracious. ‘I thank you for your concern. This great washing is an annual task, in which I always involve myself. I have done so for years, since before −’ He broke off, then added, ‘It would be heavy work for Mary alone.’

‘I would suppose there are plenty of women in the clachan willing to help her.’

The graciousness, such as it was, vanished again.

‘Oh, you are familiar with the local populace?’

‘You know that I am not.’

‘Then what you would suppose is of no import.’

I ignored this insult. ‘You may surely call on them to assist you from time to time?’ I said. ‘They are your parishioners after all.’

Dunning said, a little menacingly, ‘Aye, they are. I know them body and soul, out and in, as only their minister can.’

We faced each other for what seemed an age but was no more than a few seconds. In his open shirt, with his head lowered and eyes staring from under that darkening brow, he looked more like a prizefighter than a pastor. Then he turned and retraced his steps to the back of the manse, calling on Mary. I hurried away, ashamed. I was especially ashamed of the image I could not shake from my head, of slippery Dunning groping and thrusting at his sinewy housekeeper.

Tuesday, 25th July 1809

Another week has passed. I have had to count out the days to verify this to myself, so completely am I losing sense of time. My task goes on at its irregular pace. Food and wine are daily placed before me. I sleep in comfort every night. Surely this is a blessed dispensation, yet I am discontented. The weather continues changeable, but nothing else changes! Everybody goes about their affairs quite independently of everybody else. We meet at mealtimes, eat, talk and disperse again. I feel I have become a kind of distant cousin who arrived so long ago that the family has quite forgotten a time when I did not draw up my chair at the breakfast table; but, should I one day not appear, would they not immediately forget that I was ever there? I have the library to myself for hours at a time, and cannot settle. There lies the Book, disturbing my conscience, and I shy away from it. I am reading my way through everything else, but sometimes I must escape altogether and so I set forth on a reconnaissance. I still have not found Jessie Milne’s journal despite being systematic in my searches. There are few places left in her room where it can be.

She, having been somewhat cold, is again quite friendly to me, and occasionally ‘visits’ me at my labours and questions me as to how far I have got with them. She knows more about the Book than I appreciated, and has told me one or two charming tales about ‘Saint Conach’ which she learned as a child from some of her father’s people but which as far as I can see do not appear in any form in the manuscript. She gives a strong impression that she wishes they did, or even that they should.

The Baroness, a most accomplished conductor of daily and seasonal routines, is always busy at something. She is not at all averse to working like a servant in the kitchen or the dairy − almost as if she has only so much patience to expend on Norah or Elspeth and once it is used up must do the things herself that they have failed to do. Fashionable society would greatly disapprove of her and not hesitate to let it be known.

The Baron, on a contrary principle, adores her but does his best not to show it. He has not his wife’s attention to detail but he too has routines of a sort. I have several times seen him, when he sets off on one of his excursions, carrying a gun, by means of which he brings home occasional small game, such as hares and rabbits, which are plentiful. He also shoots foxes, although not of course for eating. When the sky is threatening rain, he substitutes a fishing rod for his gun. There are many fishes in the river, especially brown trout and salmon. I feel we have had rather too much salmon at table of late, but I cannot complain aloud. Last week he returned with an eel, fully a yard in length. Kate Nicol cooked it and presented it in slices but I liked it even less than the salmon and rather hope he does not catch another. On days when he is not at his sport, he ‘oversees’ the two or three men building the new wall round the high park, and sometimes (as he intimated to me) sets to the work himself as a kind of entertainment. He reads his magazines, continues − in spite of his resolution not to − to order new books, and writes letters. And he visits the clachan. I have ascertained that he has a great affection for Elspeth’s granny and goes to see her often. He also likes to exchange news and opinions with the clachan’s male worthies. From these exchanges come further plans of work, such as making drainage ditches, planting trees &c, which never seem to begin or, if begun, never seem to finish.

I have long made it a rule not to take up the burden of other people’s cares, but when amusement is as hard to come by as it is in Glen Conach I am forced to disobey my own statute. My curiosity about Mr Dunning − who inspires revulsion and fascination in me in equal measure − stayed with me. Not wishing to give the Baron, his wife or daughter the impression that I am a meddler, I did not press them for more information about the minister. Instead, I took another walk to the clachan last Saturday afternoon, intending to seek out the dominie. A certain understanding already existed between Mr Haddow and myself, I felt: we had not disliked each other when we first met at dinner, and he had called at the house several times since, usually to return and borrow books from the library, and on these occasions our meetings had been cordial. He, surely, would have something to impart concerning his clerical neighbour.

The day was dry but dull. Eyes were once again upon me as I passed through the clachan, but I felt they were more friendly than on the previous occasion. Indeed, a man I had not seen before waved and gave me a cheerful greeting. Not so many children were about, but those that were also seemed to regard me as an old acquaintance. It seemed that this change had come about, without any effort or intent on my part to win favour, or on theirs to grant it, through the simple fact of my having been resident at the big house for more than a fortnight.

I thought it unlikely that I would find Mr Haddow washing sheets in his shirt-sleeves. Indeed I did not. Through the window of his snug I saw him seated on a chair by the unlit fire, in his old black clothes and white stock, yet still unconsciously boyish, bent over a writing slope on which were a number of sheets covered in a close hand. So absorbed was he that it took two taps on the glass to win his attention. He looked up, startled, then hurried to the door and ushered me in with flustered animation. ‘Mr Gibb, what a pleasure, come in, please sit here, forgive me, I don’t know that I can offer you anything to eat’ etc. − a stream of apologetic friendliness which I cut off by saying that I required nothing but had simply come to pass some time with him if that was not an imposition. ‘Imposition? My dear Sir, you cannot imagine, you are very welcome’ etc. He laid aside the writing slope, seated me on the best, in fact the only, chair (the one he had vacated), brought a cutty-stool from his bedchamber and perched upon it and, then, having apparently used up in five minutes all the words he would usually spread over an hour, lapsed into silence.

The writing slope looked primitive but effective, I observed. Mr Haddow bashfully admitted that he had made it himself. It comprised a smoothed and polished square of wood mounted on a frame made of rougher pieces and, nailed to the underside of these, a cloth stuffed with some soft matter so that the whole could rest comfortably upon the thighs. I indicated the handwritten sheets and said I was sorry to have interrupted him.

‘I was only at my usual dabbling, Mr Gibb. I am − I aspire to be − a man of letters. Now that the term is ended − just a week ago − and the bairns are away to the shielings − a location they much prefer to the schoolroom − I can indulge my aspiration. I would be like yourself, one who lives by his writing, but you are far ahead of me in progress − and alas I am far ahead of you in years.’ He said this with a shy look that only made him look younger than ever.

‘I have published very little,’ I said (and spoke the truth if ‘very little’ and ‘almost nothing’ are the same, which they are). ‘What is your subject?’

Haddow glanced at me as if I had unknowingly touched on something intimate.

‘My subject, Mr Gibb −’ he said, and abruptly halted. ‘Must I always call you “Mr Gibb”? My name is Daniel. Would you care to address me by that name?’

I saw no reason why not. I invited him to call me Charles, and we shook hands on it.

‘My subject, Charles,’ he resumed, ‘is not easy to describe. I have been in the glen for so long − have been thinking for so long − that I sometimes wonder if my subject has not gone away in exasperation and left me to chase my own tail. And yet, were I not here in this wild yet settled place, with all the time to contemplate and with that whole library to read, I doubt it would concern me at all. Forgive me, I am so very pleased to see you here. I do not explain myself well.’

‘Not at all,’ I said, meaning to put him at ease, but he thought I was agreeing with his self-deprecation and leapt to his feet.

‘I can offer you something which may help to clarify matters,’ he said.

He slipped behind the screen again, and returned bearing two thick little glasses and a pig, or earthenware jar, which he set down on the floor.

HE: ‘Do you drink whisky, Charles?’

ME: ‘Very seldom. I find it dangerous to the brain.’

HE: ‘Some whisky is. This, however, contains good whisky. It is made by men who know what they are about. Yet it does not exist. Do you understand me?’

ME: ‘I think I do.’

HE: ‘You would scarcely believe how much whisky is made secretly in the hills hereabouts, Charles. It is an ancient craft, and has been for generations. In the past the people made it in small quantities chiefly for their own consumption. But in the last few decades a great demand has grown for it in the towns. Whenever a market for any commodity appears some men will set out to control and dominate it, and the government too will seek both to regulate it and to benefit from it through taxation. This is what has happened here. Almost as soon as it became possible for the people of these glens to produce a surfeit of whisky and sell it to their advantage, other men sought to capture that advantage from them, and the government made efforts to restrict its production to those same men, who are skilled at commerce and can afford to pay the tax on it and still make a profitable return. And so one of the few products of these parts that can be exchanged for money becomes worthless to the local people unless they sell it illegally. Thus, as I said, it exists but it does not. If the gaugers come looking for it, they find nothing. It trickles away invisibly, and the people receive a trickle of coin in return, poor recompense for breaking the law.’

As on that previous occasion at dinner, it was evident to me that the dominie, whose natural disposition when not teaching children was to favour silence, constructed careful paragraphs in his head which he could at an appropriate moment deliver as if he were reading from a book. I looked again at the sheets of handwriting and wondered if the little treatise on the illicit whisky trade I had just heard had been not long written down. Meanwhile, he took the cork from the pig and filled the glasses. Handing one of them to me, he lifted his own, wished me good health and tossed off most of the contents. I returned the compliment, sipping cautiously. The whisky was fierce and caught at my throat, which came close to rejecting it, but the liquid had a delicious flavour and once it had descended further it caused a hot and most exhilarating sensation to spread, as it seemed, through my entire frame.

ME (coughing slightly): ‘That is certainly superior to some of what I have tasted that purports to be whisky.’

HE: ‘It is a perfect illustration − Charles − of how, as a nation becomes ever more regulated by the rules of commerce and property − by the division of labour and the laws of a settled, ordered society − the quality of virtue declines. That is my subject, and what I wrestle with continually in my head and on paper.’

ME: ‘Do you equate whisky with virtue?’

HE: ‘No, it is only a symbol. Whisky as good as this stands for something old and pure and vigorous and − may I say? − heroic. That is something I never can be. No, no, Charles, hear me out. I am neither pure nor heroic. I wish it were otherwise, but I am a man built upon books. I have read everything in Glen Conach’s library at least once, and what I have not read in its entirety I have acquainted myself with enough to know that I have no wish or need to read it further. I have been transfixed, seduced, by this parade of words. I have watched it go by me for a quarter of a century, and yet when I reach out − there is nothing there. There is no implement with sharp blade and well-shaped handle. There is no musket, shield or axe. There is not seed to sow, nor stone to place, nor animal to slaughter. All the words dissolve and I think that I have wasted every minute I have spent trying to make sense of them.’

Despite the import of his words, Daniel, far from being woeful and despondent, spoke with great animation. It was as if the single gulp he had taken were not of whisky but of an elixir of life. I myself took another sip, larger than my first, and he hurried to refill our glasses.

D: ‘Nearly all of our great writers make a distinction between the savage and the civilised. Some find nobility in the former, but most prefer the safe, regulated life of streets and farms to the dangers and surprises of the forest. We avoid confrontation and strife, and if we must have them then we raise armies and send them to fight one another on our behalf. We think this a superior way of living to that of the savage who contends with nature and with other savages. And perhaps it is, but there is no heroism in it, there is no courage.’

ME: ‘What would you have, then, Daniel? Would you wish us back to whatever miserable lives people lived a thousand years ago?’

D: ‘Miserable to you and me, Charles, from our present view. But our view is no less obscure than theirs. Was Conach, with whom you are presently engaged and who lived in the era to which you refer, less noble or civilised than us?’

ME: ‘You have read the Book?’

D: ‘I already said, I have read everything in that library yonder. I don’t believe Conach was more or less saintly, noble or cultivated than you, me or Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The truth is, no single rule can measure the advantages or defects of different ages. I do not wish to live a thousand years ago, but if I had done I would not have spent my time resenting that I was not born a thousand years later.’

ME: ‘You mean, there has been no progress? Things are not better now than they were then?’

D: ‘Things are changed. I cannot say if they are better. I wrestle with words and their meaning, but what is that effort to the struggle of men against the elements, or against other men? A wise man once wrote that he who has never struggled with his fellow creatures is a stranger to half the sentiments of mankind.’

I do not know to what sage he referred. I wished to oppose his argument, which seemed so dispiriting, but he was now as lively as I had ever seen him and, pausing only to fill our glasses again, he rushed on with great vehemence.

D: ‘And when I spoke a minute ago of civilisation and savages, I meant to say that the philosophers, on whichever side of that argument they stand, are wrong. It is a false antithesis. When man is a savage, he is yet a social animal. He does not live alone in the wilderness like a tiger. But when he is in Edinburgh or London or Paris, has he left all his savagery behind him? No, he has not. Humans are the same in whatever condition they are found, though when men from different societies are by chance thrown together they may perceive themselves to be so unalike that one takes flight, while another worships, a third enslaves and a fourth murders his fellow creature. This is tragedy, my dear Charles, but is it not true? When Cain slew Abel he slew himself also. Does not the slave-driver draw his own blood when he lashes his slave?’

ME (hesitantly): ‘But if we do not improve − if society does not improve, and we with it − then what hope is there? Do we simply shrug and put all our faith in the deity?’

D (eagerly): ‘From the framing of your question − from that phrase you use, “the deity” − may I assume that you do not, or cannot, have such faith?’

ME (cautiously): ‘I did not say that I thought faith futile.’

D: ‘And nor do I, Charles. Indeed, I must on occasion say the opposite to the bairns I teach. But I try to exclude the deity from the schoolroom. Mr Dunning comes in from time to time and tests their knowledge of the Bible, but that is different. And forby, Mr Dunning cares little enough about it.’

ME: ‘I was going to ask you about Mr Dunning.’

D: ‘Later, Charles, later. Don’t make me lose the thread of what I wanted to tell you. I will be frank − I can be frank here, far from the hot cauldrons of opinion. I feel I can be frank with you anyway. I do not know of a deity. I do not have proof of one and I deny that anybody can give me such proof. It goes against all rational thought. There! I have said it.’

ME: ‘But a believer does not need proof. The believer is no rationalist. Proof is an obstruction to him. He needs faith, not proof.’

D: ‘You are correct. And what gives him his faith? If God has not miraculously appeared before him − and let us be honest, even among the most fervent believers there are few who claim that this has happened to them − his faith must rest on something else. Some powerful inner feeling, perhaps, which cannot be denied. But not only have I not seen God, I lack such a feeling too. No matter how hard I may wish it, I cannot persuade myself of God. And yet − and this is important, Charles − that is not to say that he may not be watching over me, his ignorant creation. If I displease him I cannot help it, for if he made me at all then he made me as I am. And there is another thing. Try as I may − stretch the sinews of my rationality as I may − I cannot close my eyes and think of myself not here. I cannot unimagine myself. And so I tread a path somewhere between faith and atheism, and commit to neither.’

He tried again to fill my glass, but I put my hand across it. ‘You are quite right,’ he said, and put the pig down, but I noticed a minute later he took another dram to himself.

‘Now,’ he continued, ‘I come to another matter, which you touched on just now − misery. Or rather, I wish to speak of its opposite, which is happiness. Christianity teaches that all the wealth in the world will not buy us a place in paradise, and also that it cannot buy us happiness. But it also teaches that we should thole misery in this life because we will have happiness in the hereafter. Again, there is no security that we will be happy in that future state because there is no proof of that future state, let alone of how we will feel if we attain it. And the crueller kind of religion that exists in this country − and elsewhere, of course − says that if we are happy without God in this life it is very likely he will make us miserable for ever in the next. More than miserable − he will cause us to suffer torture and pain unending for the crime of having being naturally happy. That is − I am sorry if this offends you − that is a monstrous imposition on a mere human creature.’

I assured him that I was not offended. I was more concerned, as the whisky worked upon me, with following his argument than with taking issue with any part of it. He went on:

‘Yet despite what Christ taught, good Christian people acquire riches and possessions, they eat and drink to excess, they play at games, they enjoy music, and so on. These things may make some of them happier but less righteous, but there is no assurance of that either. Are the inhabitants of America or Africa – the “savages” as we are wont to call them – are they less happy though they have so few possessions? You will find, among the poor, men and women without a penny to their name who are happier than a duke or a duchess, though assuredly you will also find many who are miserable. Happiness is not determined by position or wealth, nor by age or the continent in which one lives. And although a man may say, if asked, that he is happiest when he is at leisure, it is seldom true. He merely thinks, when he labours or exerts himself in some other way, that he will be happier when he stops. But it is his labour and his exertion that make him a man, and when he stops he is at a loss what to do.’

ME: ‘And do you apply this theory to women also?’

D: ‘Certainly, although I cannot pretend to know them so well. Women are always occupied with something, and complain less than men who are not half so busy.’

ME: ‘That they do not complain does not mean that they are happy.’

D: ‘True, but their busyness may be a shield against melancholy. I have read of one woman who thought that men should learn to knit and sew, as this would prevent them, when time weighed upon them, from being a burden to themselves and to others. And another woman agreed, saying that she dreaded bad weather when men could not get out of doors, as then they did not know what to do with themselves and became irritable − and irritating! But again you are leading me astray. I spoke about treading a path between faith and atheism: in the same way, I believe that between savagery and civilisation lies another condition, in which mankind is neither overmastered by nature nor has quit his place in it. And that is perhaps the happiest state, the happiest place, in which he can dwell.’

ME: ‘And where may we find this Garden of Eden?’

D: ‘Why, it is here, Charles! Glen Conach!’

He said this with a shout and a laugh, and I joined in the latter, for the elixir had by now quite affected me and I felt as if I were floating above my chair. But at once he brought us back to earth, though still he was as excited as a puppy. ‘Yet it is a dying garden,’ he said, ‘and here am I in it, a schoolmaster. There is no heroism in schoolmastering. My work is to make my charges unfit for the life into which they were born, and scarce able to flourish should they go elsewhere. And in either case, I make them less happy than they might have been.’

I said, ‘I cannot pretend that the same thoughts did not occur to me a week ago, when I peered through a window and saw you teaching the children. And though they seemed attentive they were, in fact, as you have told me, eager to be away to the shielings. But you are not responsible for their fates, let alone their happiness. And I must ask you this: would you and I rather we had been kept in ignorance than be the men we are?’

He looked at me. ‘Ah, Charles, the men we are. You do understand me,’ he said. ‘Or do you?’

His entire frame was shaking, I did not know with what emotion. He lifted the pig and indicated to me to present my glass, which he filled again. As he did so he steadied himself upon me with his free hand, and then he squeezed my shoulder in a manner that I could not mistake.

I have been misinterpreted in this way before. I neither welcome nor resent it. It is almost flattering. Other men, if they think of it at all, are frightened by what they conceive to be a bestial perversion. That is because they are frightened of themselves. Once, I confess, some years since, I allowed things to progress a little further than I liked in order to get a lodging on a winter’s night. On that occasion I was somewhat surprised at myself, but I was not frightened.

‘I think, Daniel,’ I said, remaining quite calm, ‘that you have misunderstood me. If I have in any way led you to suppose …’

He at once retired to his stool and to his own glass. ‘Ah, an error of judgement, a philosophical error. Dear Sir, another offence.’ I told him again that I was not offended, and begged him not to think of it any more.

‘I will not, I do not.’ I thought he might start to weep. Poor fellow, I suppose he has meagre fare here and must take what he can, but I won’t encourage him. I decided to take no more of either his whisky or his philosophy. ‘Tell me about Dunning,’ I said.

(But here I must desist as my fingers are numb and I have yet to apply myself to Conach today, and had better do so.)

Wednesday, 26th July 1809

Mr Haddow was greatly relieved to be able to change the subject. In ten minutes I had the whole history of the minister. Dunning is the only man in the glen, other than the Baron, with whom Daniel may have a sophisticated conversation, but they are not friends. This is not surprising to me. If Daniel has difficulty believing in a deity he must find it almost impossible to believe in Mr Dunning.

As I had already learned from Miss Milne, Mr Dunning came to the glen after the death of Mr Gillespie, some nineteen years ago. It was not a charge, from its isolation and poverty, likely to attract the most ambitious or capable of men. Daniel, who had been here several years by then, soon found that in place of the old minister − a kindly man, he said, yet one fervent and firm in his faith − had come one whose faith and kindness were alike equivocal. Mr Dunning’s moods changed as often and as quickly as the weather. He could be tolerably polite and forthcoming at noon, and by two o’clock short-tempered and withdrawn. He would deliver a sermon extolling the virtues of charity and forgiveness on Sunday but on Monday reduce a child to tears over some petty misdemeanour. He liked to sit down to dinner at Glen Conach’s table but not to bow his head and enter the cottages of his nearer parishioners. And it soon appeared that he had a habit of absconding altogether from his duties. Sometimes he was not seen for days at a time, either because he was locked away in the manse or, it was said, because he had taken himself off into the hills.

I asked if this latter were true and if so what reason might lie behind such absences. Daniel said it was quite true, for on one occasion, to pacify a girl who was then acting as housemaid to Dunning and had got it into her head that her master must be lying dead in his chamber, he had entered the manse and searched for him in vain. The old nag, which was then a young nag, was grazing in its customary pasture, so the minister had evidently not gone to call on a distant parishioner. The next day, however, Daniel had met him walking home, very bedraggled and muddy as if he had been out all night. He had refused to give any explanation of where he had been. The men of the glen did not like it any more than the housemaid, who was resolute that she would not go back to the manse. But what had he been about, out there in the wilds? That was what folk wondered. In the same way that some fishermen (such as those I knew at Dysart) have their superstitions, and will not put out to sea if they encounter a minister on the way to their boats, the Glen Conach people were not keen on a minister loose in the hills, and thought he would bring mischief upon them.

This, I said, was simply explained. It surely related to the illicit stills, and the worry that he might betray them to the gaugers.

‘Aye,’ Daniel said, ‘but that would be too easy for these people. They prefer tales of mysterious meetings with the Devil or some lesser species of bogle, of hearing screams and shouts in the night, to an admission of anything so mundane as that.’

‘Surely,’ I said, ‘they don’t believe that nonsense?’

‘But it is wonderful nonsense in which to believe,’ Daniel replied, ‘and to tell such stories between songs is a pleasing way to spend a long winter’s evening. And you must remember that the minister came among them, literally, as an intruder, for he was the nominee of the laird, not the choice of the congregation. That is, he came among them whether they wanted him or not. It has always been that way in Glen Conach − this is no hotbed of democracy − but it means that the people do not see Mr Dunning as their minister, but as the laird’s minister. It is true that Mr Gillespie was also intruded, but he was here so long that he came to be theirs.’

‘But they have not taken to Mr Dunning?’

‘Not in nineteen years, and I doubt not even in ninety.’

‘Then why does Glen Conach not get rid of him and bring in somebody else? Does he not care that his people do not love their pastor?’

He looked at me with as straight an eye as he could manage, given the combination of what he had imbibed and his recent embarrassment. ‘You must understand, Glen Conach is not a religious man. He is not an irreligious man either, as I am. What matters to him is that life should continue here much as it has done for centuries. He does not want to put out a minister that he himself put in. And then, what if he put in another whom the people liked even less? He hates the thought of any such fuss. Do not mistake me, Charles − I greatly respect Glen Conach. I am indebted to him for my living but, that aside, he is a good man, a good master to his people. He wishes to keep things as they are. And I, like an actor playing Third Attendant in King Lear, have my part in that − I attend church every Sunday although I believe not a word that issues from Mr Dunning’s lips. I attend because it is expected of me. What have I been saying to you all afternoon? This is an Eden. Why would a man like Glen Conach not wish to preserve it, and why would a man like myself not dissemble a little to assist him?’ After a moment he added, ‘Yet it cannot be preserved. It is dying.’

‘Do you think Mr Dunning believes much of what issues from his lips?’ I asked.

‘In all honesty, I do not know,’ he replied.

‘Whether he does or does not,’ I said, ‘and whether he consorts with bogles or not, he does not strike me as a contented native of Eden.’

‘And there, Charles,’ he said, ‘you are quite right. He is a most unhappy man.’

I pressed him to tell me about the late Mrs Dunning. How had he acquired her? Had she made him happy?

According to the dominie, Liza Dunning was supposedly a native of Dundee. It seems that Dunning and she knew each other as children, and that ten years ago, on one of those rare occasions when he was a commissioner to the General Assembly, they met again when he was on his way to Edinburgh and were married on his way back. This seemed to me an improbable tale. I said as much to Daniel, who was at first cautious in his reply, saying that, improbable or not, folk accepted it; but then acknowledged that he agreed with me. It was the case, however, that the minister’s overnight absences ceased when Mrs Dunning came to the glen. Daniel was not convinced that Mrs Dunning really was from Dundee, or that it was there that they had met. He thought that she and her husband might have become acquainted elsewhere. He had heard it said that not all commissioners to the General Assembly spent all their time debating Kirk law, but some expended some of their energies in other ways under other roofs whilst in Edinburgh. Was that true? he asked me.

I said that it was not improbable, and asked in return if he was insinuating that Mr Dunning had found the future Mrs Dunning in a house of ill repute and removed her from it. Daniel made an exaggerated shrugging gesture but said nothing. I said that I did not condemn a woman or a man for where they came from or what they might once have been or what they were. We let that lie between us.

I asked what kind of character Liza Dunning had had. Daniel said she had been pleasant enough but would say hardly a word even if you were to speak directly to her, and when in the presence of her husband had always with a glance sought his permission before she would venture an opinion. More than anything her character had been marked by illness. She was sickly when she arrived and was never fully well in all her six years in the glen.

ME: ‘What was wrong with her?’

D (shrugging): ‘She wasted away. She was consumptive.’

ME: ‘Was a physician ever brought to her?’

D (shaking his head): ‘No. Dunning used to say that Christ was her physician, and she needed no other.’

ME: ‘But she did.’

D: ‘We are back where we were, Charles − faith and misery. I believe he loved her, but her illness wore him down, and in the end he neglected her. He was not alone. We who should have befriended her were not friends enough. We share his guilt. I am sorry for it now.’

ME: ‘Her headstone says she was his cherished wife.’

D: ‘He chose the words. I do not judge his love or lack of it. He was an unhappy man then, as he is now. A tormented man.’

Shortly afterwards I left Haddow. He began to make apologies again, and said he hoped I would say nothing of what he called his ‘secret’ to Glen Conach, since he was no danger to the bairns in his charge. I refused his apologies. I said that I had not the least concern that he was a danger to anyone, and I urged him not to torment himself, since no possible benefit could come of it. He thanked me, said that I was a good man and he did not deserve me for a friend. I said that he did not know me, that I was no better than he was. All human creatures, I said, carried their own private burdens, and I preferred to think of these not as secrets but as stories of which others were ignorant. We shook hands. I felt the whisky in my head as I swayed out of his house into the afternoon light. ‘Goodbye,’ he called. I turned and waved farewell. For the first time since I came here, I thought he looked older than his years; older than myself, which he is by twenty years or more.

Thursday, 27th July 1809

It was remarkable that, despite what I had consumed, I seemed to see the world with the utmost clarity and even now, days later, can recall with no great difficulty the details of my movements and of the conversations I had. I use the plural form for I did not converse only with Mr Haddow that afternoon. I was passing through the clachan when I met Elspeth Carnegie coming gaily in the opposite direction, and we fell into discourse. Unquestionably she is a very bonnie creature. She was friendly to me and seemed not at all disturbed if she detected, as surely she must have, my state of inebriation.

I asked her if this was a holiday for her, and she laughed. ‘Ye should ken better,’ she said, ‘than to think ony day but the Sabbath is a holiday for the likes o’ me. There’s aye trauchles and toil for us, even on the Sabbath, while gentles tak their ease seven days in the week.’ There was a martyred tone in her voice, and yet she spoke and smiled so cheerily that I replied, ‘Then, Elspeth, you must be one of the gentles yourself, for you are often at your ease and never seem bowed down with care.’ ‘Weel,’ she answered, ‘they dae say blood will oot,’ and laughed again.

She asked me where I had been and when I told her she said that she liked Mr Haddow and always had. He had taught her as he had most of the bairns of the clachan, but she had not had the patience to sit still in the schoolroom and had got out of it as soon as she could. She would rather be in the fresh air, she said, or in the company of her grandmother, to whom she was just then going. ‘Ye had better come wi me and let her see ye,’ she said, ‘for the laird has tellt her a’ aboot ye, and she aye likes to pit a face to a name.’

The cottage to which she led me was, looked at externally, no more or less palatial than any of the others, but on entering I was glad to find it neat and dry, with the earthen floor swept clean and a good number of wooden furnishings placed around the walls, including chairs, a spinning wheel, a table and a kind of primitive dresser − which goes by the name of a haik − full of cooking pots, plates, jugs, a bannock spade, and the like. This was the human end of the house, there being a lower part, separated by a wooden rail, for beasts, but that was empty and swept clean too (the beasts, presumably, being in the high pastures). The stonework of the walls appeared in good condition and so too was the wooden frame supporting the turf roof. A box-bed made up the sleeping arrangements. A curtain, which for modesty’s sake could be extended to create two separate quarters, was tied back to a hook in an upright beam, but the cottage was so murky even in the afternoon that I could hardly think it necessary. In the centre was the fireplace, built around with blackened stones, and over it was a kind of canopy made of wood and skins to direct the smoke through the roof. There was also the usual crane-like apparatus, called a crook, for the swinging of pots. The peats were glowing, causing a light drift of smoke, but owing to the canopy the air was not as thick as is sometimes the case in these houses, when the motes float before you like so many gnats and your eyes are perpetually weeping. Various items of food − a cheese, some sinister smoked fishes and hunks of what looked like salted mutton − were suspended from the roof.

Elspeth did not hesitate to introduce me, at a considerable volume, to her ancestor, a person I understand to be more than eighty years of age. ‘Eh, Granny Ally, here’s a young callant to see ye, Maister Gibb, that’s bidin at the big hoose eenoo. D’ye mind Glen Conach was speakin aboot him to ye?’

Her grandmother was yellow as old parchment and her skin as brittle to the touch when she reached out a hand to me. I took it and bestowed a kiss upon it, much to her amusement. She was of a different structure to Elspeth, thinner and more angular, and yet in her prominent cheekbones and dark, lively eyes I could see a resemblance, and clearly there was a strong mutual affection, evinced in the warm embrace they gave one another.

‘Aye, I mind fine, Elspet,’ she said. ‘Sit ye doon, Sir, and let’s hae a keek at ye. A young callant, ye said? He’s no that young. I hear ye’re a scholar come to look at thon auld book up at the hoose. Ach weel, I could tell ye a wheen o’ tales aboot Saint Conach, and mine are a’ true.’

I asked her what made her think the tales in the Book were not true, and she said, ‘Because they’re in a book, ye gomeril!’ and I saw that I was diminished in her estimation. I could not draw out of her any of the stories she claimed to have, and when I said that if she would not tell them to me I would have to rely on Miss Milne’s versions she snorted derisively. ‘As muckle use as a book! But dae ye no hae ony ither purpose in mind?’ she went on. ‘There’s lassies in the glen just desperate to be wad gin there were suitors to wad them. But a’ the braw laddies are awa for sodgers, sae if ye’re quick ye micht tak your choice, eh no, Elspet?’

The crone directed winks of a most deplorable sort at both of us, which I chose to ignore. Elspeth simply laughed and said, ‘Och no, Granny, I’ll wait on a sodger comin hame or else I’ll gang awa and find ane for mysel. But dinna fash,’ she added, observing a look of what was probably exaggerated anxiety in her relative’s face, ‘ye’ll no be left alane. Ye’ll aye hae Glen Conach to mak sure ye’re lookit efter.’

‘Glen Conach takes good care of his people, then?’ I inquired.

‘There’s mony a laird that’s waur,’ the old woman said. ‘Some hauds their folk in penury and some wants to clear them oot a’thegither, but Glen Conach is nane o’ that breed. He has a saft hert, though it’s no aye to his advantage.’

It was hardly ringing praise. Elspeth, I thought from her expression, was still less admiring of the laird’s beneficence, but she held her tongue. I asked her grandmother if she lived alone in the cottage, to which she replied that she did, although Elspeth came back and forth and often stayed the night, which she found a comfort in the winter − ‘But in the summer I’ll no hae her in the bed for she gies aff sic a heat as wad melt me intae seerup.’ And there was sometimes a neighbour’s daughter that helped her about the place, for she was not as able as she once was. And Glen Conach stopped in to see her almost every day, whether or not he had much to say. She wanted for nothing but her husband, her two daughters and Elspeth’s father, all of whom were long dead and, she said, there was no profit in wanting them back for they would not come, and Elspeth was a fair compensation when she felt their loss.

I took my leave soon after this, puzzled both by what I had learned that day and what I had not learned. There were things about the glen that were confusing and obscure to me, and I felt this was not due only to the power of Mr Haddow’s ‘good’ whisky. I made my way back to my room in the big house, where I thought I would stretch myself out for a few minutes’ contemplation before dinner. Unfortunately I fell into a deep sleep, and nobody either summoned me or kept me back a morsel for when I awoke, which was at about nine in the evening. Glen Conach might look after his people but his house guests must look to themselves, it seems. He warned me of this when I first arrived, of course.