Lament for a Maker by Michael Innes

distract the old body, no doubt, that Will thought to cry out: ‘Mistress Roberts, could we have a look at your grand atlas and see Newfoundland?’
    Both the Roberts loons are at sea, and their mother right proud of the great atlas they gave her to follow their wanderings in. So, ill-thoughted though she is against those that are helping keep the roof over her by drinking a decent pint of beer, she couldn’t resist that invitation; away she went and was presently back with the atlas, and a fresh pot tea forbye.
    So we all – except the greengrocer Carfrae, who was still chewing over the insult to him – had a keek at the map, and Will asked Would Newfoundland be in America? I said it was as much in America as Canada was and no more; you could say it was in the Americas maybe. And then Will wondered Where was it Guthrie’s American cousins lived, the creatures that syne tried to have him proved skite?
    Mistress Roberts was that delighted she forgot Will’s tink joke on her aspidistra and offered tea all round; even when Rob Yule said No, he’d have another pint thanks and pay for it she drew it without as much as a sour look. She thought Will had found for certain what was troubling the laird and why he had cried out to Isa’s hearing about Newfoundland and America. Myself, I wasn’t that impressed.
    But Will said that was why Guthrie was opening Erchany; the cousins had near got him in the asylum on the strength of his meanness and solitariness, and now he had heard they were plotting at him again and it was driving him to make some show of sane liberality: no doubt he’d bring Christine to witness he was in the habit of cracking a bottle of wine for her. And if we knew the name of the cousins, which we didn’t, certain enough it would be Kennedy or Henderson, the same that Isa minded him calling out in his gallery. At this the stationy said there was a great fascination, sure, in amateur detection, and Rob Yule said that might be, but there was more sense in a bit solid knowledge; if Will didn’t know the name of the American cousins he did, and it was nothing but plain Guthrie. He had been but a wean when the younger Guthrie lads went out to Australia but he minded well his father saying they’d near gone to America instead, their father’s brother’s sons were there, and that they didn’t go was said to be because there was bad blood between the families.
    ‘There,’ cried Will, ‘blood!’ The greengrocer gave a start, as if it was his blood was being called for, and Mistress Roberts paused with her teapot in the air, bewildered. But Will was thinking he’d fitted a bit more into his picture. ‘Wasn’t Guthrie havering to himself that night about something being in the blood? And wouldn’t it be the malice of the American Guthries he was thinking on, those that have tried to dispossess him and are maybe at it again?’
    The stationy said it was highly colourable. And wee Carfrae, who had been glowering in his corner but just couldn’t resist joining in the speak again, said Maybe – but there had been others besides the American creatures at feud with the Guthries of Erchany. Wasn’t there Neil Lindsay, now, that dark chiel with his mind buried in the dim past and believing for certain that he and his were enemies to the Guthrie for ever? And at that the stationy said he didn’t see Guthrie fashing himself over a mad Nationalist loon; still, it was right to explore every avenue.
    ‘I’d like fine,’ I said, ‘to explore Guthrie’s gallery.’
    They all stared; I’ve always found that the less one says the more it’s attended to. ‘And forbye,’ I said, ‘I’d like to know what were the verses the man was chanting that night.’
    They stared more at that and the stationy said he didn’t see how Guthrie’s bit poetry could be a relevant factor.
    ‘Maybe you don’t,’ I said, speaking in the cryptic-like way the stationy himself likes to employ.
    Rob Yule gave a bit laugh at that