When it finally ended there was an extended silence, into which Mistress Drummond said happily, ‘My, but it is good to hear it sung proper.’
‘I never heard it sung like that before,’ said one of the younger men from up the glen in doubtful tones. ‘Are you sure you mind it right, Davie Drummond?’
‘On the contrary,’ said old Mairead. ‘He has it exactly right. That is the old way of singing it, just as I mind it in his father’s mouth thirty year since.’
‘Just as I mind it too,’ said Patrick in his grave voice. He leaned forward and put his hand on Davie’s curly head. ‘My doubts are gone. Wherever you have been, if you can sing like that, you can only be my brother returned to us.’
Mòr’s face, lit by the nearest rushlight, twisted into a sour smile as she watched. Caterin leaned down to her spindle, whose thread had snapped, and Davie reached up to grip Patrick’s wrist and said, ‘I was well taught.’
Yes, thought Alys, and who by? And was the hand that gripped Patrick’s trembling, or not?
The discussion went into Ersche, and seemed to be a detailed dissection of parts of the song, a consideration of what some of the old words meant. Davie joined in occasionally, with a diffident comment preceded each time by, My father said.
There was a touch on her elbow. She looked round, and found Agnes smiling shyly at her in the glow of the nearest rushlight.
‘We are going outside, we young ones,’ she said softly. ‘Will the lady come with us?’
‘Gladly,’ she said, suddenly aware of being over-warm, and rose to follow the girl. Socrates scrambled up from behind the kist she sat on and followed, provoking warning growls from some of the other dogs lying among the feet, and there was a further disturbance as Steenie extricated himself from his corner.
Out in the moonlit yard the air was cool and fresh. The hills around the farm loomed black against the stars, and the occasional call of a nightbird prompted the Drummond girls to cross themselves and mutter a charm Alys could not catch. The dog paced about, checking the scents, cocking his leg against the fulling-tub and other corners; Steenie took up a watchful stance by the house wall, and Murdo said:
‘Are you liking the ceilidh, mistress?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ she said. ‘I was never at such an evening before.’
‘That great song was bonnie,’ said Elizabeth softly. ‘It never sounded like that when they sang it down in the Kirkton.’
‘Maybe he could be singing it next week at the Feis,’ said Agnes.
‘Maybe no,’ said Ailidh. ‘Murdo,’ she prompted. Her lover nodded, and braced himself to speak.
‘There has been another accident, just this day,’ said Jamie Beag before he got the words out. ‘Would the lady be wishing to know more about it?’
‘I would indeed,’ said Alys, as levelly as she might.
‘It was worse than before,’ said Agnes. ‘For Jamie and my uncle Padraig might have been hurt in earnest.’
‘Hush, Nannie,’said her sister. ‘Let Jamie tell it.’
Jamie explained. They had gathered in all the barley, and since the stooked straw was dry they had begun to bring it in as well. The far end of the outfield was a good half mile from the stackyard, so the bundles must be laid on a wooden sled, which the pony brought down with reluctance.
‘He has never liked the sled,’ said Jamie seriously, his voice very like his uncle’s. ‘Nor he has not taken well to let Davie work him, though he is fine with my uncle and me.’
‘He bites,’ said Elizabeth. The other girls nodded, the moonlight shining on their clouds of fair hair.
‘You should be selling him at the Feis,’ said Ailidh. ‘There is no use of a pony that only two folk on the place can work.’
‘You would get a good price maybe if you sold him to the monks,’ said Agnes.
‘Maybe,’ said Jamie Beag. ‘Am I to tell this or no? So we had the pony up the field, and the sled loaded, and hitched Lachdann up, and Davie had the rope at his head, and my uncle and me were pushing to start the sled.’ He paused, and Alys murmured understanding. ‘And then Lachie began snorting, and he shied away, and he was for biting Davie, only Davie got him on the nose with the rope. So I took Davie’s place, and he was to push instead, and when I tried to lead Lachie forward he tried to bite me and all, and then he reared up and struck out with his feet, and squealed, and reared again. I thought he would split my head open, even though he is not shod.’
‘I saw it from here,’ said Agnes. ‘I thought the Devil was at the beast.’
‘So did I,’ said Jamie frankly, ‘but my uncle came, and he checked all the harness, and when he looked inside the breastplate he found a needle.’
‘A needle?’ repeated Alys incredulously.
‘A broken one,’ said Murdo. ‘Wedged in the lining of the breastplate, so it would stick in the beast when he leaned into it. They have showed it to me.’
‘And those ones,’ broke in Elizabeth, ‘would not be touching a needle, because it is iron, you know, so it makes it certain it is — ’
‘Husha!’ said Jamie. ‘You see how it is, mistress. This time it was no accident.’
Alys nodded.
‘Has any of you lost a needle, or broken one, lately?’ she asked. A needle was not cheap; even in Glasgow, with merchants and metalworkers to hand, she guarded her own carefully in a little wooden case, and here where the nearest replacement was probably in Perth or Dunblane, it would be wise to keep a close watch on such things. Jamie looked at his kinswomen, and after a moment Agnes said reluctantly:
‘I lost my good needle a while ago. Maybe two weeks since.’
‘Mammy broke one the other day,’ admitted Elizabeth. ‘She put it safe, out of Iain’s reach. He crawls about the floor, times,’ she explained to Alys.
‘I never found mine,’ said Agnes. Alys nodded. No help there.
‘What does Davie plan to do, do you know?’ she asked.
‘About the needle?’ asked Ailidh.
‘No, no. Does he mean to settle here, or go back to Dunblane, or go for a priest, or — ?’
‘Oh.’ Ailidh turned to her kinsfolk. ‘Well, he — we’ve not — ’
‘I’ll be staying here — ’ said Davie at Alys’s elbow. She jumped convulsively, and he put out a hand to her. ‘My sorrow, I never meant — ’
‘You with the soft feet,’ said Jamie, half smiling. ‘He goes like a cat, isn’t it, mistress.’
‘So you will stay here at Dalriach?’ she said, her heart still hammering.
‘I will, while the old woman dwells here. As sure as my name’s Davie Drummond,’ he said, on a faint note of challenge.
‘But is it?’ she said quietly. He looked steadily at her in the moonlight.
‘It is,’ he said. ‘I swear it, mistress.’ One of the girls giggled nervously.
‘By what will you swear?’ she asked.
‘Mary mild and Michael and Angus be my witnesses,’ he said formally, and crossed himself with each name, ‘that I swear I am Davie Drummond.’
Jamie clapped Davie briefly on the shoulder.
‘Another pair of hands about the place is a good thing,’ he said, ‘and the more so when it’s kin. I’m right glad to hear that you’ll stay.’
‘But what will the mammies be saying?’ said Agnes pertly, linking arms with Davie. Her cousin Elizabeth moved to his other side, looking up at him, her face shadowed. ‘They were arguing again today, about whether there is enough here to be dividing three ways.’