Journal of Charles Kirkliston Gibb

Friday, 1st September 1809

My relations with the Baron have certainly benefited from our recent excursion. He treats me now half like a son, half like a close friend. We share a secret about the minister, of course, but I think he was also impressed by my walking and climbing prowess, as he has not disparaged my vigour or my physical shape all week. Indeed, I do feel healthier and stronger than I can ever recall. Daniel Haddow was at dinner on Tuesday and complimented me on my appearance. The fresh air and braes of Glen Conach were agreeable to me, he opined. I said they were and hoped that I was agreeable to Glen Conach. The Baron, who had not been listening properly, at once agreed that I was agreeable to him. Miss Milne stared at her plate, her mother at the ceiling − both, I think, conscious that so long as I remain in the laird’s favour I will not be served notice to leave, even if it were discovered that I had translated the Book not only into English but also into French, German and − for mere amusement − Arabic. I have been here nine weeks, one of the longest encampments I have ever made. However, already Daniel’s Eden begins to pale, and soon it will turn to brown. I am ever mindful of the Baron’s own warnings about the winter, but have heard nothing back from Sir John Dalrymple.

Daniel’s compliment was, I am sure, sincerely meant, and came with no suggestive intent. I fear no further attempt from that quarter. He is almost too shy, but how else can he be? Were he to make one ill-calculated approach to the wrong man, he would be utterly ruined. I was on the point of writing that I cannot imagine what it is to live like that, but I can. I live like it myself, though my dangers are of a lesser magnitude.

Still no word from Captain Milne, but the latest newspapers carry reports of the surrender of Flushing. This has apparently been accomplished with few losses to the British forces, but the bombardment of the town has left scarcely a house unmarked and many buildings lying in ruins, and the inhabitants are left in a very sorry condition and ill-disposed to the liberators who have destroyed their homes. Many French troops have been captured, which must always be a great inconvenience to a victorious army, as they must then guard, feed, and attend to the wounds of the men they were intent on killing the day before. It must be tempting in such circumstances either to disarm them and let them go, or starve or shoot them, which of course would not be gentlemanly and also, once word got out about it, would lead to reciprocal behaviour on the part of the enemy. But as the two sides were only trying to achieve the same result previously, though by different methods, the moral outrage rings somewhat hollow. I will, thank God, never make a soldier.

Saturday, 2nd September 1809

I have not long woken from a most vivid and detailed dream which has disturbed me greatly. I woke while it was still dark and found myself in a sweat and very confused as to where I was and what was dream and what real. It is lighter now and I am less confused, so I will write down everything exactly as I yet see and hear it.

Jessie came to me in the library. She seemed listless, almost mechanical, and had neither a smile nor a frown upon her face. She held a plate before her but it was empty. One moment she was at the door, the next she was putting the plate down on the great table and standing directly opposite me, very dull-eyed. The Book was resting on its cushion, open somewhere about the middle.

She said, ‘You are surely nearly finished with that by now, Mr Gibb. You have been here nearly three months.’

‘Not quite so long as that, Miss Milne,’ I replied.

‘Oh, are my calculations wrong? More than sixty days, then. If you have managed two or three folios a day, which would not be very burdensome, then your work must be all but complete.’

‘Some parts of the text are more difficult than others,’ I said.

‘I did not find them so,’ she answered in the same flat tone.

I said, ‘I thought − that is, I remember you saying − that you found the Latin trying.’

‘Yes, but did I not correct myself and say that it was the story that tried me? I suppose it is easily checked.’

Then she turned and seemed to glide, very swiftly but as stiff as an automaton, to the nearest shelves, and ran her finger along the spines of the books, as if searching for one that would corroborate her memory. Her finger came to rest on a large volume, and she stood very still.

‘But in truth,’ I heard her say, ‘I am not surprised at the slow progress you have been making, when so much of your time is taken up with writing about us.’

‘Miss Milne,’ I said, ‘whatever do you mean?’ But it was as if somebody else spoke and I only mouthed the words.

‘Oh, please, Mr Gibb,’ she returned sharply. ‘Do not pretend you have not been keeping a record of our faults and failings.’

‘Miss Milne,’ I said, ‘have you been spying on me?’

She continued to face the shelves. ‘Have you not been spying on me?’ she said. ‘One person’s private journal is as interesting to read as another’s, I suppose − although you need not think yours so fascinating that I have read every word of it. I have read enough, however. You must think me very naïve, or perhaps just idiotic − what with the ugly mark that you say perpetually torments me, my too many teeth and my too low estimation of your wealth and genius. Yet you also have the arrogance to believe that I have fallen in love with you.’ Suddenly, as if mounted on a revolving disc, she spun round to look at me, and now her voice grew loud and shook with emotion. ‘Oh, but you also think me cunning! Is it cunning of me to appear idiotic? Or does my idiocy destroy my cunning? Is it cunning that causes me to sigh when you come near me, or can I not help it? And then there are your opinions of my brother whom you have not even met, and of my mother and father, into whose house you have slid like a snake. Impostor! Abuser of my father’s kindness and hospitality! Thief! Do you deny what you have admitted in writing, that you stole money and chattels from some of the very people who have given you food and shelter? I wonder what you intend to steal from us before you depart.’

I stood up and found that I was no longer by the desk but at the windows that look down the glen − among the dream’s curiosities were these unnatural sudden movements. ‘Miss Milne,’ I said, ‘I am caught in a snare set by myself. You have every right and reason to despise me, not only because of what you have read but also because I was so arrogant as to think you would not find me out. I beg you to believe that I never thought you an idiot. I never thought any part of your appearance ugly. I only admire and respect you. I admire and respect your parents too, though I am as wholly undeserving of their generosity as I am of yours. I cannot expect you to welcome the esteem of a dishonourable wretch, but I would plead that if you had not seen the things I wrote down in private you might at least not dislike me. You are right to call me a thief. If you wish me to go now to your father, to beg his forgiveness or be delivered by him to the nearest custodians of justice, I will do so. If, however, you simply wish never to see or hear of me again, only say the word − or do not even speak, but make a sign of assent − and in five minutes I will be gone from here for ever.’

I remember thinking − that is, in the dream I thought − that this was a rather fine speech, and that I hoped Jessie would agree. But her stern expression told that she was not impressed. ‘I will settle this,’ she said. ‘That damned old charlatan is the cause of it.’ She sprang without any effort on to the table and, lifting her skirts a little, began a regular march, stamping each shoe in turn upon the Book of Conach, which was rapidly demolished amid a cloud of feathers as the blue cushion also disintegrated. (Is it not wonderful how, when we dream, such behaviour does not strike us as at all singular? If Mr Dunning had appeared naked under a cascade issuing from the library cornice I daresay I would not have been surprised.) Jessie’s disfigurement, which I realise now had not been visible until that moment, was at once larger than ever, and throbbed in time with her marching. When she spoke she sounded just like her mother. ‘You may prefer to slip away, Mr Gibb, but I will not permit it,’ she said. ‘You may attempt to disguise your offer of flight as a service to me, but I am not beguiled. You have a task to complete, and I demand that it be completed, even if it takes you until your last breath to do it!’

This was the moment when I awoke, perspiring freely and in great terror. I may even have cried out. My first thought was that it would be impossible to fulfil Jessie’s order since she had destroyed the Book, and this filled me with a profound despair. It was only when I reviewed the sequence of events that I understood that the whole thing had been a dream.

It nevertheless contains a very clear warning to me, which I have taken to heart. I was arrogant not to consider that Jessie − or somebody else − might find and read this journal, as I found and read hers. The consequences of that are so awful to dwell upon that I have been dwelling upon them with a morbid pleasure for the last half-hour. What would happen to me, were my words to be read by another? What would happen to Mr Haddow, or Mr Dunning? One of us would be hanged, another loaded on to a boat to Botany Bay, and the third put in a hospital for the insane; but I am not sure how the allocation would fall, nor which would be the worst fate. I therefore determined to secrete this book, when it is not in my immediate possession, in a place where it will never be discovered. For some minutes I hunted in my chamber for such a spot, testing floorboards, looking under the bed and in the press, but without satisfaction. At last I came upon the very location. In the commode, behind and below where the chanty is stored, is a space just wide enough to accommodate the journal. Conveniently there is a loose piece of wood which, when fixed in position, entirely hides the fact that the space exists at all. It is as secure a retreat as I can hope for, and better than many that in the past kept safe Catholic priest, rebel Covenanter or fugitive Jacobite.

Wednesday, 6th September 1809

The oats have ripened early because of the good weather. Glen Conach tells me that in some years they cannot fell the oats until late October, and even this year the bere must wait several more weeks. There are also some clover meadows that were cut earlier and can now be cut again − this is good fodder to get the beasts through the first part of winter, so the Baron says. There will be potatoes to lift next month too. So, all are employed in some manner, although I am relieved to find that the family do not stoop quite so low as to wield sickles and gather stooks themselves. I might otherwise have been recruited to join them. Instead, the women help Kate Nicol prepare and carry food and ale to the harvesters at intervals during the day, and Glen Conach loiters near the rigs with his gun, and takes shots at rabbits and other creatures as they break cover and flee from the reapers’ blades.

I walked out with him yesterday when they were in one of the parks by the river, and saw a more efficient though also more barbarous way of collecting game. Some boys stretched a net between the riverbank and a tree, and as the last of the crop was felled others drove a dozen displaced rabbits and a hare towards the water. When the creatures turned in their panic to escape drowning they were caught in the net, whereupon they were set upon with clubs and sticks which occasioned a terrible squealing and crying, mercifully soon over. The boys offered the laird the choice of their catch and he took two rabbits but left the rest to be divided among the inhabitants of the clachan.

‘My people are at their happiest when life is like this,’ he said to me at breakfast this morning. ‘When they are happy, I am happy. With a good hairst comes the promise of better times to come. When the last sheaf is cut − what we call the clyack sheaf − it is dressed in ribbons and the youngest lassie brings it hame to us here, and we have a feast and a dance. We will have dancing when all has been ingathered, will we not, my dear?’ (This addressed to the Baroness.)

‘There is plenty to be done before there is any dancing,’ she replied, but I could see that his excited mind was racing ahead of all practicalities.

‘Two or three times in the year, Charles,’ he said, ‘such as now, or at Hogmanay, we clear the hall, put chairs and the pews from the kirk round the walls, and the people come and eat with us and then dance through all the evening. Strathspeys, Scotch reels and jigs − we do them all. It is a great occasion, the clyack feast, is it not, Jessie?’

‘It is, Papa,’ she replied.

‘It sometimes becomes very high-spirited, Charles,’ her father went on. ‘I will not say that there are not visits to the whisky bothies beforehand. And we take a few of the old swords down from the armoury walls and the best dancers show off their skills at skipping over them. Oh, it is a great occasion. It is like a dramatisation of “The Piper o’ Dundee”.’

‘It’s a shame, though, that we do not have a piper,’ the Baroness interjected. ‘The last piper in the glen went to the army and has not come back, Mr Gibb.’

This remark cast a sudden gloom across the table, which I attempted to disperse by inquiring, since I could not imagine Mr Haddow dancing or teaching the children to do so, if a dancing master came to the glen. Glen Conach almost choked at the notion.

‘We have no need of dancing masters here, my dear Gibb. The bairns start to dance as soon as they can stand. There are fiddles aplenty hanging in the houses, and men that ken how to play them. They play not for payment but as a pastime when their work is done. It is true they are mostly old men, but one or two of the young lads show some talent. As for the bagpipe, I have no great love of it and do not mourn its absence from us. The fiddle is the true Scotch instrument.’

I said that if I were still here I would look forward to the dance, which was an untruth, and the Baroness pierced me with a stare and said, with equal sharpness, ‘I think you will be away before then, Mr Gibb.’ Then she rose from the table and left the room, but not before giving an imperious nod to the Baron, which, quite accurately, he interpreted as an instruction to follow, and which he did not disobey.

After they had gone, Jessie said, ‘You are surely nearly finished with the Book by now, Charles?’ and I experienced a moment’s confusion, wondering if I were asleep or awake, since her question was so similar to the one her likeness had asked in my dream.

‘I am still labouring, Jessie,’ I said.

‘Well, I would like to see what is needed to make your labours complete,’ she said. Again, I was struck by this echo of my dream, and half expected her to say something about my last breath. What she in fact said was, ‘Let us reconvene in the library in half an hour, when we can make a plan of attack.’ And she too rose and departed.

Her use of the plural pronoun disturbed me. I did not know what she meant by it but I sensed that the time for taking my leave of Glen Conach House was approaching faster than I had anticipated. I have looked daily for a letter from Sir John, as eagerly as the Baron looks for one from his son, but we both remain disappointed. God forbid that I am obliged to go back to my mother.

I had left my transcription of the Latin and my English translation in a drawer of the desk in the library and, after a hurried retreat to my room to ease a certain queasiness of the bowels, I went there at once, intending to remove a good number of the sheets and put them out of sight, so that Jessie would not discover that both transcription and translation were finished. Alas, when I entered the library I found that she had been too quick for me, and was already seated at the desk with all my sheets, covered densely in my handwriting, spread out before her. She gathered them and took them to the great table, where she sat down again and asked me to place the Book of Conach in front of her too. She then began to read, turning my sheets and the folios of the Book − as if she were comparing the transcription with the original and making a judgement of the quality of my translation against both. I tolerated this for a few minutes and then begged her to ask me any questions she might have about my work. She looked at me as if I were an impudent boy and she my governess.

‘Please, Charles, let me read in peace. Amuse yourself among the other books for a little while. Then we will talk.’

I saw that she was deadly serious, and also that there was no pretence at all in the manner of her reading: she was judging my work! This was a more formidable Jessie than I had ever thought to encounter. Somewhat piqued, I roamed the shelves in search of something I had not yet read, but I could not settle. It was not long, however, before she summoned me to sit with her.

‘Oh, Charles,’ she said, in a chiding though not too severe tone. ‘What would Papa think of you if he knew of your deceit? What if I were to tell him that you are not still labouring, but lazing at his expense? Well, he might not be surprised or even much care. Mama, I am sure, would care very much if I told her. But what fashes me more is what I said to you weeks ago − the story of Conach is not very engaging. Your translation is accurate enough, but do you not find him the dullest of heroes? He is so priggish and superior I want to slap him, and his extreme forms of penitence are revolting. He is a rank hypocrite too − I don’t believe he was any holier than the abbot he so despised. As for his wandering about clad only in a sack all the time, it is quite ridiculous − he would have died of cold his first winter here. Well, we must work with the clay we have, but we cannot let our hermit go out into the world half finished. We must add the other stories about him − the ones I have told you − and one or two more.’

ME: ‘There are more?’

JESSIE: ‘I am sure there must be. The more miracles he performs, the better.’

ME (attempting to reassert my authority): ‘Jessie, this is a document of antiquity. I am not writing a romance.’

J: ‘Oh, but whoever composed it was doing just that. You surely don’t believe any of it is true?’

ME: ‘I believe it is genuine, which is not the same. I cannot invent things and add them simply to make it more interesting.’

J: ‘But writers of romance do that all the time.’

ME: ‘I am a historian, Jessie.’

J: ‘And historians do too, I am sure. They want their heroes to look as heroic as possible. Besides, I thought you were an antiquarian. Have I shocked you, Charles? Surely no more than you have shocked me. And surely it is not unreasonable to include, in a book about Conach, all the stories that exist concerning him?’

ME: ‘It might be acceptable to mention them in an introduction or an appendix, but not as if they were part of the original document.’

J: ‘I am glad you concur that they should be included. Very well. Let us proceed with that as our plan for the time being. We can make a decision on how to arrange these items later.’

I could not let this pass, and asked her if she meant to be involved in the work which hitherto had been mine alone. She said she had decided that this would be both amusing and instructive to us both, and had already added a few notes in the margins, to which she hoped I had no objection. I said that I had very strong objections, and observed that it was strange that her father had invited me to undertake the translation when there was an erudite scholar already under his roof. She answered very firmly that she understood I had invited myself, that she was her father’s daughter so it was not in the least strange that she resided here, and that, given my past behaviour towards her and what she knew of my character I was in no position to refuse to agree.

Had we been playing a game of draughts that would have been a king of hers capturing three of my men in one move, I think. I recalled my dream and felt a little more unwell, for when she mentioned my character it occurred to me that she might have found and read my journal before I hid it, and yet be too cunning to tell me. I determined that, for now, I should acquiesce to her proposal, and said so.

‘Then I am happy again, Charles!’ she said, clapping her hands and transforming herself instantly into the Jessie over whom I once thought I had some mastery. Her face was bright with pleasure − I was both repelled by and attracted to her. Mr Gibb, I said to myself, you are swimming in deep waters now.

She announced that we should do no more manuscript work for the rest of the morning, but celebrate our new alliance with a walk up the glen. I had been to the so-called hermitage, she said (this part of my adventure with her father being no secret), but she herself was doubtful that the cave had ever been the home of the venerable hermit. She wished now to show me two other places that had long been associated with ‘Saint Conach’ in the minds of the local people. The day was fine and if we left quickly and discreetly then nobody − by which she surely meant her mother − would miss her. ‘Certainly nobody will miss you,’ she added.

So it was that ten minutes later we had slipped away and were walking up the glen, the Scaurs on our left and the river and the harvest work some distance to our right. We crossed the burn that flows from Conach’s Linn, and far above us I could see where the cave must be, but this was not our destination. I thought I was in good marching trim but Jessie is sturdier and swifter than I am ever likely to be. After going half a mile or so further, the way began to narrow, and drew us towards the river, where the hardy alder and birch trees grow quite thickly. But as we approached the water the path suddenly turned away again and we climbed a short, stony incline on to a mossy sward, about fifty yards in length and half as wide, sheltered on three sides by rocks and pine trees. The damp green carpet was dotted here and there with clumps of bog-cotton and a few boulders, but was otherwise unremarkable. It was here that Jessie stopped, and spoke.

‘Elspeth’s grandmother − Granny Ally, as we call her − has a story about this place. She and others older than her say that this is where Saint Conach had his cabin.’

‘Why do they call him a saint?’ I asked. ‘He was never canonised by any church.’

‘Is that what causes saintliness?’ she answered swiftly. ‘Perhaps it is enough that the common people thought him a good man.’

‘But you have read the Book,’ I said. ‘You know he was no saint. Not an hour since, you called him a prig.’

‘That is how I read his character as it is in the Book. But the Book tells also of the sacrifice he made of himself,’ she said. ‘I told you before, that story is known to the people too, although they seldom speak of it. He refused to betray those he was protecting. Our people would judge that a saintly act, a heroic act.’

‘Ah, now you are confusing saints and heroes,’ I said. Her reasoning was quite unreasonable. ‘But did you not describe Conach as the dullest of heroes?’

‘I am not confusing anything,’ she replied. ‘What the Book says and what the old folk think are different. And, whatever he was, they also say that this is where he had his abode.’

‘On what evidence?’ I asked.

‘The word of their ancestors,’ she said. ‘It is what they were told by their grannies, and their grannies by theirs, and so on all the way back to when Conach lived.’

‘The tales of old wives!’ I said.

‘See how the bog-cotton has been left unpicked?’ she answered. ‘Everywhere else the women pick it in June, when it is new. They use it to make candle wicks, and great quantities of it go to stuff cushions. It is also used to staunch intimate blood. But here they leave it, because this is Conach’s place.’

‘But why, on that account, would they leave it?’ I asked.

‘Because it is like him. When the seeds first turn to cotton, it is pure and white. But as the summer passes bits are blown away and only the scraps of an old man’s beard are left − as they are now.’

I could not stop myself from laughing. If that was evidence, I said, then I had better take lessons in antiquarianism from the old wives.

‘Perhaps you should,’ she said. ‘Old wives’ tales they may be, but they are still told. What would you put in their stead? You may search all you like but nothing remains of Conach’s cabin. The Book mentions a stone carved with a cross, under which Conach’s bones should lie. There is no such stone here. Only the stories remain.’

‘But to pretend that this is where he lived, because bog-cotton grows here and is like his beard, is ridiculous. Even if there were traces of a dwelling or a grave, it would still be nonsense.’

‘I pretend nothing. And that is not what I said. They believe he lived here because they were told so, not because of the superstition about the bog-cotton. It is plain that the superstition must have grown upon the story that was handed down, not the other way round. Whether the story is true or not is another matter.’

‘If they are right,’ I said, ‘which I do not concede for an instant, then this must also be where Conach wielded the knife with such terrible effect.’

But she either did not or chose not to hear me. Already she was marching onward. ‘Come with me, Charles,’ she called, ‘and I will show you something else.’

We returned to the path by the river, and proceeded still further up the glen. The way grew very steep and rugged and the river narrowed, but it was not tumultuous because, apart from the thunderstorm, there has been so little rain of late. Jessie sprang on ahead and I clambered behind, until she brought me to a spot by a pool, made shady by the overhanging branches of birches covered in moss.

‘You will recall the passage in the Book, Charles,’ she said, as I regained my breath, ‘in which Conach goes away to pray, and meets the madman.’

‘And they argue, and the madman steals his psalter,’ I replied. ‘Yes, I recall it. Are you about to tell me that this was the scene of the wicked act?’

‘So our old people maintain.’

‘And what is the evidence this time?’

‘None of the kind you seek,’ Jessie said. ‘The only evidence is in the stories and the situation itself. Is this not a very wild and romantic spot? Can you not imagine the scene? Can you not hear the argument between the two hermits, the one saintly and the other insane?’

‘I can,’ I said, ‘but anybody can imagine such a scene. It does not make it fact.’

‘Oh, I detest facts!’ she cried. ‘If we had only facts, we would not have the part the otter plays when it rescues the psalter from the river − such a bonnie detail!’

‘But that,’ I said, ‘is nothing more than a fairy tale, even supposing the first part of the story to have some basis in reality. And, if I may remind you, the otter is your detail.’

‘Is it?’ she said. ‘I can hardly remember. What does that matter anyway? I could also show you where Conach spoke with the wolf, or where he threw himself in the bed of nettles, but I have no evidence to persuade you of the truth of those locations either. Charles, do you not see that it is quite impossible to prove anything about Conach or any of what that dirty old manuscript says about him? It is all lost in the mist of time. Do you not mind that I warned you of that mist on your second day here?’

‘And do you not mind, Jessie,’ I said, ‘that I told you I accepted the fact of the Book but not that what it contained were facts? I am not interested in fairy tales and the prattling of old women. I am interested that the Book exists, that it is a dirty old manuscript. It is not lost in the mist of time. It has survived. That is why it matters.’

‘It matters to you,’ she said, ‘only as a means to an end, which is to be provided with food and shelter at my father’s expense. That is your sole reason for being here. You do not care about the Book at all.’

‘Then we are the same,’ I said.

‘No,’ she said, ‘we are different. I am like the old women you disparage. If I grow old I will tell the same stories that they do, because the stories belong here. Do you not see how completely apart we are from the world? You have come and you will go, and other men too, but we women − we cannot leave. We care about this glen. If the stories die then so does a part of the glen. But you, Charles, when you grow old what will you care about? I fear you may not even care about yourself.’

‘You misread me, Jessie,’ I said, knowing that she did not.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I read you very well. My flaw is visible to all. Yours is hidden, but it is there just the same.’

She had come very close to me. We stood with only two feet between us and yet, in that wild and romantic spot, as she had designated it, I felt that we were as far apart in our thinking as two stars, which seem so near to one another when seen from our own planet but which are in fact separated by a greater distance than any of which we can conceive.

More immediately, I found that her face, flushed with emotion, the ringlets that framed it and were damp from physical exertion as was her brow, her tall, ungainly figure which yet was shown to its best effect in the simple dress she wore, her eager blue eyes, the little red ‘o’ of her mouth, even the birthmark which seemed not ill-formed but to be a part of her natural being − in short, I found everything about her enticing and endearing, while everything within me fought against that discovery and wished to flee from her and from it and from the place to which she had brought me. But I did not flee. We were such strange companions, neither liking nor disliking one another, and unmatched in our social positions, and yet there was a mutual understanding of what was to take place. I put my hands upon her hips, and she put hers upon my shoulders, and I did not draw her into me any more than she voluntarily came to me, and our lips met. And then very quickly our hands strayed elsewhere, and things became undone, and in reply to an urgent inquiry which I made she whispered in my ear that lassies ken mair than just auld wives’ tales, and what I will next inscribe here, in order to draw a veil over the occasion since even to think on it now, several hours later, both excites and appals me, is a device used (so I believe) by authors of a certain class of novel to represent the closing of the bedchamber door, viz:

*****

Friday, 15th September 1809

I have been too busy this last week to write anything in this journal. The harvest is in full progress, and every able body from the clachan is out from dawn until dusk assisting with it. Jessie and I have had some further, somewhat rushed, lessons in what M. Voltaire calls natural philosophy, but we have neither of us been able to avoid being recruited for other duties − in her case, by her mother, in mine by her father. All the other men being occupied with the harvest, the Baron insisted on my returning to the occupation of dyke-builder on three separate days. I thought I would be killed by this, but to my surprise found my blood invigorated and my limbs given new power and skill, perhaps as a consequence of my educational endeavours with Jessie. Mr Dunning does not toil in the parks, but Daniel Haddow does. He is as brown as a nut and has had all his youthfulness restored to him.

For a week I have not even entered the library, let alone looked at the Book or my translation, and indeed even to think about them nauseates me. It is a peculiar thing that, despite our new intimacy, I see no prospect of Jessie and I resolving our differences about what a new presentation of Conach’s life should or should not include. I suppose it does not much matter, as I will take both transcription and translation with me when I depart this place, which will be soon enough whether I have somewhere to go to or not. I only hope that I leave no trace of myself behind. She assures me that all is safe in that regard but I do not altogether trust her.

The Baron, when he is not anxious for news of his son or building the dyke, now has his head full of the coming festivities to mark the hairst. He has set a date for the dance, the last day of this month, which falls on a Saturday. Thus there will be a pagan thanksgiving one evening, and a Christian one the next morning under Mr Dunning. But I shall be away before these things happen.

I should say that Dunning has been civil to me since the Baron and I saw him naked under Conach’s downpour, and seems quite calm. On Monday morning we exchanged greetings as he rode by us in the high park on his old nag. He said he was going far up the glen to see an old man who lived alone and had been reported by a shepherd’s lad to be very ill. Glen Conach said that this was the man he had told me of, who was once nearly made a slave by pirates. On Wednesday I learned from the Baron that the minister, on arriving at the remote habitation, had found his parishioner dead, and had had to ride back again and call on Davie Nicol to go with him next day to help dig a grave, for it was too rough and too far to carry a coffin all the way to the kirkyard. After they had interred the body and Mr Dunning had said prayers over it, they came home, and he entered the death in the register. The Baron says that with that old fellow’s decease there is no person now living more than four miles beyond the clachan this side of the mountains. He sees this as a mark of decline.

We had word yesterday from Jock McLeish, the carter, that the army in the Low Countries has abandoned any attempt to capture Antwerp. As this was the whole purpose of the expedition, it seems an extraordinary turn of events. McLeish was adamant, however, that the people of Forfar, who are as keen for news of their sons as Glen Conach is for news of his, believe that a large part of the army is being withdrawn across the sea, and that many of the troops are sick with a fever. The carter brought with him some newspapers from August which contain none of this, and we must await a further batch before we may learn the truth.

Wednesday, 20th September 1809

In one more week the present work in the fields will be complete, although other crops will be taken in during October − potatoes, neeps, bere, etc. − and the garden vegetables such as cabbages and kale will be cut as long as frost does not kill them. I am no expert when it comes to inspecting the quality of grain but the quantity amassed is impressive, and everybody seems pleased. Very soon, some of the men and boys will choose the cattle they intend to sell and drive them a hundred miles to join the throng at the Falkirk Tryst, and that will be the end of the season’s work.

I have received no letter from Oxenfoord. I must be away from here before the month is out, and it is therefore too late to write anywhere else to beg a temporary haven. On the subject of havens, the one where I have been mooring often this last fortnight has been declared out of bounds owing to the risk of taking on unwanted cargo. I miss our lessons but the truth is, it is too deep a harbour for me. When we are not philosophising I have little to say to Jessie that does not lead us into dispute. I see her mother in her more and more and this is disquieting now that I have been where I have been.

I always did intend to leave before summer’s end. I have resided here nearly three months, my work on the Book of Conach is done, and it remains for me only to make my excuses to my host and take to the road.

Still, I will be sorry to say goodbye to these people, and will not soon forget them. My fondness for them is however not greater than my desire to be in or near Edinburgh − that is, to be in a place somewhat more touched by civilisation than Glen Conach ever can be, and having more to amuse a man of my intellect than this house, despite its library, ever can possess. I am, moreover, highly uncertain how much longer my present relations with Jessie can be sustained without leading to one of several falls, all unfortunate: either she falls in love with me again and I am obliged to be cruel to her; or I fall so out of favour with her that she denounces me for the villain I am; or she falls victim to a common female indisposition and I am obliged to marry her; or we are discovered hypothesising and I am felled, beaten, murdered or eaten − or some combination of these − on the orders of her father. Any of these eventualities would be undesirable. On the other hand, if I go within the next week, the least damage will be done to me, to Jessie and to her honour. It is plain to me that, as things stand between us, I will not break her heart, since I am clearly not the first to have toyed with her affections or engaged her in scientific investigations. She will be very angry at first, especially as I will have to leave without saying farewell, but I do not think she will regret my going, indeed may even be glad of it. I will not be here, of course, to see if I am right.

Saturday, 23rd September 1809

Another carrier was here from Forfar with, among other things, some copies of newspapers from the past fortnight. The reports are thin, yet seem to confirm that there has been a general retreat from the Dutch islands and that the bulk of the great force assembled has been brought back to England. We do not know whether the 42nd was involved in the siege of Flushing or in some other part of the campaign, and therefore have no indication of what dangers Captain Milne faced or what heroics he may have performed, and this ignorance causes the Baron much frustration. When the Baroness tells him that he must calm himself he becomes more impassioned still and has to go to the high park and work it out of himself with a yard or two of dyke. I must say, for a gentleman who claims to disdain that kind of labour he has a remarkable capacity for it.

Thursday, 28th September 1809

Jessie in a private moment this morning asked me if I was avoiding her by chance or design, and did I not wish to resume our acquaintance, as she would be able to receive me in another day or two? I made some exculpatory mumbles by which even I was not persuaded, and knew − know − that I must leave at once, for if I take her up again I dread what might be the outcome. I then told a downright lie, which was one concocted and intended for the Baron but which I suddenly thought could serve as well with his daughter.

‘Jessie,’ I said, ‘I beg your forgiveness if I am out of sorts. These last three nights I have been disturbed by a most unpleasant dream. My old mother, who ever since my father’s death has been an example to me of fortitude in the face of adversity, came to me in my sleep, pale and weeping, and when I asked her what was wrong she said that she was terrified that I would not be at her bedside in her last illness, nor bear her coffin to the grave. I remonstrated with her but she faded before my eyes.’

I said that I thought my sleeping mind must have been influenced by the story of the man who died alone far up the glen but, the dream having recurred on two successive nights, I was left with a great fear for the health of my mother, and this was what was preoccupying me. The fear was so strong that I felt I might have to go to her.

Jessie gave a kind of snort and said that in all the weeks I had been at the house I had not once mentioned my mother or her fortitude, and that she did not believe I put any more store in dreams than I did in old wives’ tales. Furthermore, I had been ‘out of sorts’ for a week. In short, she scoffed at the notion that I had had any such dream and said I was once again demonstrating disrespect for her intelligence. She then left in a state of dudgeon − whether that should be high, deep or great I am never sure − and I did not see her again until dinner, when she was very cool to everybody and hardly glanced at me. I cannot blame her − it was impetuous and stupid of me to try such an excuse on her at all.

After dinner, Jessie and the Baroness retired early to their rooms. I was left alone with Glen Conach in the great hall, which is to be decorated tomorrow in readiness for the harvest dance. I decided to act upon the moment. The Baron was sifting through the numerous papers and journals that were piled around his chair, as if he might have missed some vital piece of information concerning his son. When he had completed this exercise he sat back heavily and tugged at his hair, which the Baroness has been unable to get at with scissors for some while. The unconscious effect was to make his head look as if a gale had just blown over it. He stared at me and said, ‘My dear Gibb, is that you? I did not see you. How long have you been here?’

‘Since we both sat down after dinner,’ I replied, and leapt in before he could begin a fresh hunt among the papers. ‘Sir, I must beg your attention. You have been so hospitable to me in allowing me to stay here all summer. I came − you invited me to come − to see and make a translation of the Book of Conach, and this I have done. I had wished to present you with a fair copy of that translation, but I regret that this will have to be postponed to a later date. The fact is, I must take my leave of you, and at once − tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Yes, and I must make a very early start, and so will not see Lady Glen Conach or Miss Milne again.’

‘But you cannot leave without saying farewell. And what about the dancing?’

‘It is essential that I go as quickly as possible to my mother, who I am sure is very ill.’

‘You have had a letter from her?’

When he asked this I almost said yes, for it occurred to me that he would never remember whether a letter had come for me or not. His lady, however, would and, since I had spoken of a dream to Jessie, I thought it wise to stick to that story. I therefore repeated, more or less, what I had told her, emphasising the profound effect the dream had had on me and the absolute conviction I had that I must go to my mother at once. The Baron, good man that he is, swallowed it in one gulp.

‘It’s a powerful thing, a dream,’ he said. ‘We are a rational people now, of course, and have given up burning witches and seeing angels and the like, but I have heard many tales of dreams and premonitions, what the old people − the Gaelic people, I mean − used to call the second sight. Well, Charles, I must put myself in your place. Suppose that I had a dream like yours − about Sandy, for example − would I be able to resist its message? I would not. You must go, but you will miss the dancing. Could you not stay until then?’

‘I should have heeded the first dream and gone two days ago,’ was my reply.

‘Well, I understand the need for urgency. You would enjoy the dance so much, but it cannot be helped. You will return, though, will you not?’

That, I said, would depend on the condition in which I found my mother. Even if she were well, I did not think I could desert her at once, and winter was approaching. He nodded and pondered, and while he did this I assured him that I would copy out the translation and either send it to him or deliver it in person next spring. This seemed to cheer him. ‘Perhaps Sandy will be home,’ he said, ‘and you will meet and become friends.’ He hoisted himself out of his chair and hugged me like a bear. ‘My dear Charles, my dear fellow, we will miss you,’ he said, and I felt as low and vile in my being as I have ever felt. He made me drink some whisky with him, and then became distracted by the newspapers again, and I crept away to my chamber to write this entry. I am almost done. I will wrap this journal and all the sheets relating to the Book in oilcloth, pack my satchel and try for a few hours’ sleep, then leave before dawn comes and the house awakes. And so, farewell, Glen Conach! Despite my promise to the man who bears your name, I do not expect to see you again.