Free A Scots Quair by Lewis Grassic Gibbon Page B

lilt in the voice of him. And he broke off and whistled the song and then he sang it again:
    Bonny wee thing,
    Canty wee thing,
    Lovely wee thing,
    Wert thou mine
    I would clasp thee
    In my bosom
    Lest my jewel
    I should tyne!
    And at that, crouching and listening, the daftie took his hands from Maggie Jean and began to sing the song himself; and he took her in his arms again, but gently, fondling her as though she were a cat, and he set her on her feet and tugged straight the bit frock she wore; and stood up beside her and took her hand and guided her back to the path through the larch wood. And she went on and left him and once she looked back and saw him glowering after her; and because she saw he was weeping she ran back to him, kind thing, and patted his hand and said Don’t cry! and she saw his face like that of a tormented beast and went on again, down to the station. And only when she came home that night did she tell the story of her meeting with Cuddiestoun’s Andy.
    But as the day wore on and Long Rob, working in that orra field above the Mill, still sang and sweated and swore at his horses, the singing must have drawn the Andy creature down from the larch wood, by hedges creeping and slippingfrom the sight of the Upperhill men in the parks. And once Rob raised his head and thought he saw a moving shadow in a ditch that bounded the orra ground. But he thought it a dog and just heaved a stone or so in case it was some beast in heat or on chicken-killing. The shadow yelped and snarled at that, but was gone from the ditch when Rob picked up another stone; so he went on with his work; and the daftie, tearing along the Kinraddie road out towards the Bridge End, with the blood red trickling down his woesome face, was all unseen by him.
    But right at the corner, close where the road jerked round by Pooty’s place, he near ran full tilt into Chris herself, coming up from Auchinblae she was with the messages her mother had sent her on, her basket over her arm and her mind far off with the Latin verbs in- are . He slavered at her, running towards her, and she screamed, though she wasn’t over-frightened; and then she threw the basket clean at his head and made for Pooty’s. Pooty himself was sitting just inside the door when she reached it, the louping beast was close behind, she heard the pant of his breath and was to wonder often enough in later times over that coolness that came on her then. For she ran fleet as a bird inside the door and banged it right in the daftie’s face and dropped the bar and watched the planks bulge and crack as outside the body of the madman was flung against them again and again. Pooty mouthed and stuttered at her in the dimness, but he grew real brave when she made him understand, he sharpened two of his sutor’s knives and prowled trembling from window to window—the daftie left them untouched. Then Chris took a keek from one window and saw him again: he was raking about in the basket she’d thrown at his head, he made the parcels dirl on the road till he found a great bar of soap; and then he began to eat that, feuch! laughing and yammering all to himself, and running back to throw himself against the door of Pooty’s again, the foam burst yellow through the beard of him as he still ate and ate at the soap.
    But he soon grew thirsty and went down to the burn, Pooty and Chris stood watching him, and then it was thatCuddiestoun himself came ben the road. He sighted Andy and cried out to him, and Andy leapt the burn and was off, and behind him went Munro clatter-clang, and out of sight they vanished down the road to Bridge End. Chris unbarred the door in spite of Pooty’s stutterings and went and repacked the bit basket, and everything was there except the soap; and that was down poor Andy’s throat.
    Feint the thing else he’d to eat that day, he was near the end of his tether; for though he ran like a hare and Cuddiestoun behind him was more