Act One, scene twenty three

Pages 110 - 111

Then she tidied the kitchen and found a spare sheet and went out to the hedge above the road and spread the sheet there, the sign she’d arranged with Chae should she need him. In an hour or so, out in his parks he saw it and came hurrying up to Blawearie, crying to her half-way Chris, lass, what’s wrong? Then only she realised she hadn’t yet spoken that day to a soul, wondered if her voice would shake and break, it didn’t, was ringing and clear as a bell crying down to Chae, My father’s dead.

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Chae Strachan and old Sinclair of Netherhill saw to the funeral, old Sinclair moving so slow up the road, you’d half think he’d stop and take root, clean agony it was to watch him, and his face so pitted and old, father had been young by the like of him. And Mr Gibbon came over to see her, he’d been drinking a fell lot of late, folk said, maybe that accounted for the fact that as he crossed the twilit brae he was singing out loud to himself, Auntie heard the singing and ran up and out and hid in the lithe of a stack to try and make out what he sang. But he left off then and left her fair vexed, she said later she could have sworn it was a song they sang in the bothies about the bedding of a lad and a lass.

Pages 115 - 117

And Chris thought of her dream looking up at the coarse lands of the hills and thinking of the lands of death, was that where Christ would meet with father? Unco and strange to think, standing here in the rain and listening to that voice, that father himself was there in that dark box heaped with the little flowers that folk had sent, father whom they were to leave here happed in red clay, alone in darkness and earth when the night came down. Surely he’d be back waiting her up in Blawearie, she’d hear his sharp, vexed voice and see him come fleetly out of the house, that red beard of his cocked as ever at the world he’d fought so dourly and well -

Somebody chaved at her hand then, it was the grave-digger, he was gentle and strangely kind, and she looked down and couldn’t see, for now she was crying, she hadn’t thought she would ever cry for father, but she hadn’t known, she hadn’t known this thing that was happening to him! She found herself praying then, blind with tears in the rain, lowering the cord with the hand of the grave-digger over hers, the coffin dirling below the spears of the rain. Father, father, I didn’t know! Oh father, I didn’t KNOW. She hadn’t known, she’d been dazed and daft with her planning, her days could never be aught without father; and she minded then, wildly, in a long, broken flash of remembrance, all the fine things of him that the years had hidden from their sight, the fleetness of him and his justice, and the fight unwearying he’d fought with the land and its masters to have them all clad and fed and respectable, he’d never rested working and chaving for them, only God had beaten him in the end. And she minded the long roads he’d tramped to the kirk with her when she was young, how he’d smiled at her and called her his lass in days before the world’s fight and the fight of his own flesh grew over-bitter, and poisoned his love to hate. Oh father, I didn’t know! she prayed again, and then that was over, she was in the drive of the rain, hard and tearless, the grave-digger was pointing to the ground and she picked up a handful of soft, wet earth, and heard the Reverend Gibbon’s voice drone out Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, and leant over the grave and dropped the wet earth; and then the grave-digger was throwing in the turf, the coffin rang as though it were hollow, she stared at it till Uncle had her by the elbow, speaking to her, and so was the Reverend Gibbon but she couldn’t hear them at first; and folk were to say she must have been real fond of her father after all, the best of a coarse bit family in the end.

And then she was walking back through the kirkyard and the folk at the gate were stopping to shake her hand, Long Rob and Chae to say they’d aye help her, and Ellison, kind and solemn and Irish, and old Sinclair dripping in the rain, he should never have been out in a day like this. The last was Ewan Tavendale, he said Ta-ta, Chris, his hand was wet meeting hers as her own hand was, but he put up his left hand as well as his right and held both of hers a minute; and he didn’t look ashamed and shy any more, but as though he was so sorry he’d help her in any way, not only the ways he could.

That was the last of them she saw and the end of father’s funeral. Back in Blawearie Auntie Janet made her strip from her clothes and get into bed, God be here, it’s you that’ll be next in your grave! she cried. And Chris slept throughout the remainder of that day, undreaming, she didn’t wake till late in the night, Blawearie listening and hearkening about her. And then she was afraid, awfully afraid, sitting up in bed and hearkening to that. Something that walked the house with sharp, quick footsteps, running so fleetly up the stairs, impatient and unresting, a shadow with footfalls that were shadows; and into the night and far towards the dawn it roamed the house of Blawearie till the cocks were crowing and Uncle and Auntie moving, and Chris didn’t feel afraid at all by then, only lay and wept softly for the father she’d never helped and forgot to love.

Reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd, London on behalf of the Estate of Lewis Grassic Gibbon

Copyright Lewis Grassic Gibbon 1932