“How about ten per cent?” countered James Stuart.
“Can’t spare the profit margin, lad,” said Lachlan, still twinkling. “But a’course, if you’d rather spend the holiday with your mum and dad, there’ll be no hard feelings from here.” He took the dagger out of the jewelry case and began to polish its metal sheath with a tartan scarf.
“It looks a little dangerous,” said Babs McGowan doubtfully.
“Five percent, then!” cried James Stuart. “I’ll start now.”
“I’m not sure…”
Lachlan waved her away. “You’ve a party to get to, haven’t you? Leave the lad to me. As another of your clansmen put it: ‘You deserve a break today.’ Right, Jimmy? We’ll see you in a wee while, madam.”
Babs McGowan wandered away, wondering how long it would be before she was paged and implored to return for her son.
“Now then,” said Lachlan Forsyth when she was out of earshot, “I’ll just give you a bit of an intro to the goods here, right? Now, most of the prices are marked on the items. See, here on this key chain, there’s a four-dash. That means four dollars. Your biggest problem will be the folks who come up wanting clan items without a clue as to which one they belong to. They don’t belong to any, like as not. But look here: this little book lists all the surnames associated with Scottish clans. So you get the bloke to tell you his last name, and you look it up, right?”
James Stuart frowned. “Suppose the name isn’t in here?”
“Well, you ask for other family names. Their mum’s maiden name, or their granny’s. Sooner or later you’re bound to hit one that turns up in the book, and then you sing it out and find the tartan for whatever clan it is.”
“But I don’t know tartans.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to, lad. They’re all marked on the back with little silver stickers. And see this one? That’s the Caledonia tartan, which belongs to no family at all. It’s just general Scots plaid, for anybody. So if you can’t match up a name with a clan, you just give them this one and they’ll be happy.”
James Stuart began to leaf through the clan book. “Harper… Buchanan; Hathorn… MacDonald… Miller… MacFarlane. Got it.”
“Dead easy, isn’t it?”
“I guess so. But aren’t you fooling them with that Caledonia one?”
“Aren’t you the trusting one, though? I’ll tell you, Jimmy, seeing as how we’re in business together now: it’s no more of a sham than the rest of ’em.”
“It isn’t? Why?”
“Because clan ties aren’t as easy as coming up with the right last name, of course, but people don’t want to know that. Here, I’ll give you an example. This one, Miller-Clan Buchanan it says, right? Well, you’ve only got to think about last names to see how daft that is. Because the great majority of surnames came in one of two ways, lad: occupation or patronym.”
“What was that last one?”
“Patronym. The first name of your dad. So you might be John’s son-Johnson; or Robert’s son-Robertson; or Andrew’s son-Anderson. You see the way of it?” James Stuart nodded. “But all the Johnsons aren’t related, are they? Cause why?”
James Stuart smirked. “Because they were probably descended from a thousand different Johns.”
“Right you are, lad. And it gets even stickier than that. Here, what’s your dad’s first name?”
“Stuart.”
“And what about his dad?”
“Um… Arthur. Why?”
“Because last names didn’t stay the same in the old days, not when people took their fathers’ names. See, your dad would be Stuart Mac Arthur-son of Arthur-but you’d be Jimmy MacStuart, because you’re the son of Stuart. Now, all that changed around the sixteenth century, most likely when the bureaucrats decided to get things organized. So they say to you: we can’t be having all this surname-changing ’cause we don’t know who’s who; so from now on your lot will be MacStuarts, and it won’t change. But you see-if they’d put a stop to the name-changing twenty years earlier, in your grandad’s time, your family would be Mac Arthurs instead. Do you see? So a Johnson might just as easily have been a MacDonald or a Robertson. It was the luck of his dad’s name when the changing stopped, and it doesn’t prove a pennyworth of kinship with anybody else.”
“What does MacGowan come from?”
“Oh, well, that takes us back to occupations, lad. In Gaelic, a gow was a blacksmith. So you can be fairly certain that one of your ancestors could shoe a horse, but how do you know whether he was the smith of Kintyre or the smith of Dundee, or one of the other few hundred living all over Scotland?”
James Stuart thought it over. “Was it the same with Millers?”
“There was a mill in every town, lad. And there were Coopers making barrels, and Fletchers making arrows, and Weavers spinning cloth-but there’s no saying that the Weaver in a given clan was the one you got your name from, is there?”
“How could you be sure?”
Lachlan Forsyth stopped dusting the thistle-patterned china and shook his head. “Call it equal quantities of luck and hard work, Jimmy. You check shipping records to trace your ancestor back to Scotland-that’s if you know what port and what date he came in. And you check out his birth records in Scotland-that’s if you can trace him back to his place of origin. And you hope the courthouse or the parish church didn’t burn within the past few centuries. Believe me, it’s a lot easier to call out a last name and have someone look in a book and assign you a clan. It means about as much in the end.”
James Stuart thought about the large enameled plaque in the McGowan den, which bore the arms of Clan MacPherson. “Why doesn’t it make any difference?” he asked.
“Ask me again,” said Lachlan, noticing that the man in the Buchanan tartan was about to walk away. “I’m in need of a break. You ought to be able to hold down the fort for a quarter of an hour. Change is in the tin box there. One last thing. Tartan ties are eight dollars, and scarves are ten. Got it?”
James Stuart nodded. “Ties eight; scarves ten.”
“Right. Do your best, lad. Remember your five per cent.” He hurried away from the stall with a beaming smile to an approaching customer. “My assistant will be happy to help you, mum!” he called back.
The woman fingered the rack of plaids. “I’m a Logan, and I’d like to get a tartan for my husband. How much are they?”
James Stuart gave his best imitation of his mentor’s feral smile. “Yes, ma’am. Logan. The ties are ten dollars, and the scarves are twelve. Cash.”
CHAPTER FOUR
CLUNY, sprawled on the warm grass in feline oblivion, looked considerably more comfortable than Elizabeth felt. She was holding her third cup of ice water-trying to decide whether to drink it or pour it over her head-when Betty Carson appeared with a stranger in tow.
“Elizabeth! Wonderful to see you!” She gave Elizabeth the hug that Southern women substitute for a cordial nod. “I know everyone must be frantic because I’m so late.”
“They’ve managed to bear up,” said Elizabeth, glancing at the lawn-chair contingent. They were still discussing home computers without visible signs of distress.
Betty Carson’s steel-ribbed smile took in the idyllic scene and the half-empty bottle of Johnnie Walker. “Leave them to me,” she said briskly. “I’ll get this bunch working. Oh, Elizabeth! This is Cameron Dawson, a new professor in Andy’s department, and you’ll never guess where he’s from!” The young man looked so embarrassed by this that Elizabeth decided not to try. When no answer was forthcoming, Betty said triumphantly, “Edinburgh! Isn’t it grand? He’s practically right off the plane. Anyway, I have a blue million things to do, so I’m leaving him in your charge. Cameron, you’ll be in good hands. She’s Maid of the Cat for your clan. I’ll find you later!”