The Fanatic Read online

  ‘Then whit?’

  ‘I was gaun tae speak but she pit her haun ower ma mooth. She was straddlin me, lettin me intae her. But there was somethin no richt. Aboot the haun ower ma mooth. The fingers werena richt.’

  ‘It was dark.’

  ‘But no that dark. I came awake. I pushed back her hair. It wasna the wife. It was the daughter. The fuckin lassie. I was inside her. I was aboot tae fuckin come in her. I pushed her aff. I felt masel collapse as I did it. I got her haun aff me, I says Whit the fuck are ye daein? She didna speak. She lowped aff the bed and ran for the door. I got on ma feet but she was awa. I stood there shakin. I had this big pain in ma baws. Like there was this big knot aw tangled up. I felt I was gaun tae puke.’

  ‘And did ye?’

  ‘No then. I went back tae ma bed and lay there. Didna sleep aw nicht. I was thinkin aboot the doctor’s wife and if I should say onythin. But I kent I couldna. I couldna say a word.’

  ‘But somebody did. Somebody tellt somebody.’

  ‘The next evenin, it was a Monday, the doctor was hame early. He was niver hame early. I had been oot at work. I was fucked, puggelt. I came in and he was staunin in the hall. He says, come in here. He had a kinna study. He uised tae work at hame tae. He was a big shot in the Infirmary.’

  ‘Ye kent ye were for it.’

  ‘I was in a dwam. He looks straight at me and says, you know I could press charges. I says, whit? He says, my wife has asked me not to. On condition that you leave. At once. I asked him whit he was talkin aboot. He says, oh I think we understand each other. My wife says you’ve been ogling her. That was the word he uised, ogling. She feels very uncomfortable around you. I felt masel gettin angry, I says, that’s no ma problem. He says, that in itself I might forgive, though I can’t condone it. My wife is a very attractive woman. Then he stops and gets even mair serious-lookin. He says, it’s the other thing I can’t overlook. My daughter is impressionable. She is also under the age of consent. I cannot have her at risk. When she told my wife that you had come to her room and tried to seduce her, my wife of course insisted that I speak to you, and that you must agree to leave this house. If you do, that’s as far as this matter will go.

  ‘I couldna believe whit I was hearin. I was that shocked I wasna even angry. I was staunin in front o him like a wean, and him daein this fuckin heidmaister routine, and I was aboot tae come oot and say, haud on, pal, ye’ve been misinformed, it’s yer wife that’s been giein me the eye, and as for the lassie, it was her that got intae ma bed – but I stopped and thought aboot it for a second and I realised I didna hae a chance.’

  ‘Whit did ye dae? Ye didna let him get aff wi it?’

  ‘There was naethin for him tae get aff wi. The idea that the doctor’s womenfolk were queuin up for us was jist laughable. And this guy was power, ken? He could crush me like a slater. I couldna win. I couldna stey in that hoose whitiver happened, no eftir whit had been said aboot me. The only thing I could dae was no admit it. I turned aroon and left the room. Didna say a word tae him. There was a bathroom at the back o the hoose for us students. I went in there and that’s when I puked. Then I went back tae ma ain room. I packed aw the stuff I had intae a suitcase and a few bags. I pit a note on the stuff I couldna cairry – a box o books, a few auld claes – sayin TO BE COLLECTED. I picked up the suitcase and the rest o ma gear – there wasna much – and I walked oot the hoose.’

  ‘Ye found a room for the nicht?’

  ‘Doon by Haymarket. I wantit tae get far away frae that place. The Festival hadna startit so it wasna impossible tae find somewhere. I booked intae this guest-hoose and I went oot for a drink.’

  ‘Ye sat and had a few pints. Whit were ye thinkin?’

  ‘First of aw I was thinkin, ye shouldna hae left. I was mair angry at masel than I was at the doctor and his family. But that passed. Then I began tae wunner if I’d been dreamin. Or if I was mad or somethin. Mebbe the daughter hadna come intae me at aw. Mebbe I’d fantasised it in ma sleep. Or no even in ma sleep – jist made it up and convinced masel. Cause why would she hae? I’d hardly spoken tae her. I’d got the wrang end o the stick as far as the wife was concerned so how no wi her tae? Then I thought, mebbe ma memory’s rewriting stuff for me. Mebbe I’m seik. Mebbe I really did try tae get intae her room but I dinna mind it like that, I’m shiftin the guilt affae masel and ontae her.’

  ‘Ye didna really believe that?’

  ‘I didna ken whit tae believe. There was nae evidence either wey.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then I calmed doon a bit. I didna need tae stey. I could get oot right then and there. The next mornin I sortit oot a few claes. I went back doon tae Princes Street and bought masel a rucksack, and took aw the money I had oot the bank. I came back tae the guest-hoose and packed the rucksack. Then I walked doon tae the bus-stop, got a bus oot tae the motorway and startit hitchin.’

  ‘Ye went tae France.’

  ‘France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland. I went intae Eastern Europe years before the Communists were turfed oot. I jist flitted aboot, pickin up a bit o work here and there. Usually I worked for a pittance and a roof ower ma heid. That was fine. I niver spent much so I saved a fair bit in thae years. And I’d send ma mither a postcaird once in a while, tae let her ken I wasna deid.’

  ‘But ye came back.’

  ‘Aye. How could I stey awa for iver, jist because o somethin that might or might no hae happened? I came back. I got the job in the bookshop. I was quite surprised tae get it, but it was a new shop, they wantit folk wi a degree. And I moved in here.’

  ‘How fuckin convenient. So but whit happened tae yer healthy attitude? Yer ditch the baggage, go tae Europe attitude? How come ye’ve regressed?’

  ‘I niver ditched the baggage. I thought I had but I was still cairryin it wi me. Ye canna ditch it.’

  ‘Bury it.’

  ‘Ditch it, bury it, whitiver. Ye canna. No stuff like that. It’s aye there.’

  Edinburgh, September 1677

  That storme of witches that cousin John foretellt raged all throgh last summer, that is 1677. First there was them hangit at Paisley. Then the dumb lassie Jonet Douglass haveing regaind hir voice, it seemd she could not stop her selfe discovering more of Satan’s servants. Mr Hew Smith, minister at Eastwood, no favorite of government, had some time been suffering much pain and sweats, to the changing of his shirt half a dozen times some days. Jonet Douglass took 6 men to a wuman’s house in Carmonnock, where they found ane image of the minister, made by a wife in Eastwood that had carried it to hir sister in the black arts for safe keiping. It was full wt pins, which when removed ware found to have been the cause of his illness. The weemen ware execute.

  Meantime Sir George Maxwell, whase life the lass Jonet had seimingly saved by discovering the plot against him, growes seik again and dies. She had offered to take a party of men to a house in East Kilbryde, where she said the mischief was, but they declyned, wt this dire result. But she did detect ane uthir effigy of a gentleman Robert Hamilton of Barnes by Dumbartoun, who was tormented wt maist grievous chist pains. The image had pins intil its chist, and a circle of 5 women was taken and throwen into prison at Dumbartoun for meaning to injure him. But they had roasted uther picturs of him, so that the discovery was made ower late, and he died while they ware waiting trial. In June a commissioun into the affair was established by order of the Privy Council, it consisted of four lairds of that countrie, who ware gyded in all their procedings by the 5t member, Mr John Prestoun.

  Jonet continued in hir wark. Robert Dowglass of Barloch had lost two sons drouned in crossing a water. The dumb lassie persuaded him they perished by designe of some witches that bade near the place, 2 men and 2 weemen. They ware arrested and taken to the tolbuith at Stirling, where they ware pricked and witch-marks found upoun them. While othir evidence was being soght, 2 of them hanged them selves in prison.

  About this time Jonet begins to hint that some great persons in the land also are witches. At this the Privy Counci
l decides she has over reached her self, and orders her apprehended wheirever she should be found, and broght to Edinburgh. They put her in the Canogate tolbuith whare I saw her.

  She was ane dorty sour looking body. She looked wt scorn at ony that came near her, and seemd to relish that she could enthral men and women far aulder than her selfe. She at ance informed Bailzie Charteris that his wife was witcht by 2 auld weemen in the Castle Hill. They ware imprisoned but denied any knowledge of what they ware accused. Jonet desired they be made to say the Lord’s Prayer in front of the bailzie, 2 ministers, my selfe and others. This they did, I could detect nothing wrong wt it, nor could the ministers.

  Ye did na tak tent, says Jonet. They did na say it rycht.

  Ay they did, says I. Ane of the ministers bids me be silent. How did they say it? he asks her.

  She says, They did say ‘Our Father which wert in Heaven’, not ‘Our Father which art in Heaven’. At this baith Charteris and me protests. All had hard them. They made no such error.

  The lassie fetcht me a look. They meant their maister Satan, she says, he was a fallen angel. Likewise they said, ‘Thy will be done as it was in Heaven’.

  The bailzie says. She is haivering. This can not be taken as evidence against thir weemen. Then the ministers askd me as a lawyer my opinion. She is an impostor, I said. That, or she is hir selfe suffering delusion. We ken nae thing about hir, nor can she tell us how she is possesst of hir wisdome. She may have the 2d sight, or words and picturs revealled in the air, I said, but this proves not a thing against ony body but hirselfe. She has caused trouble enough in the West, I said, without us importing her mischief this side.

  Yet there was alarums of witches alredy in Fife and at Hadington. I was a witnesse to the latter. It was in June when I came back off the Bass from seeing Mitchel. A walthie widow Margaret Kirkwood, being suspected of witcherie, hangs hir selfe one Sunday forenoon. The storie arose that she was strangled by the devill and witches to keip her silence. The base of it was this: hir serving woman Elisabeth Mudie was in church, she makes some moan and noise during the sermon, and is heard to number till she reaches 59, hir mistresses age, at which she cryes out. The turne is done, and fents away. This was the very instant Margaret Kirkwood is making away wt hir selfe. Moodie was examind and given over to the pricker.

  The pricker was a skunner, yellow of eye, and tummocks of hair sprowting from his lugs and neb, a jurneying man who sauld potiouns &c when not pricking witches. I thoght him a fallacious rogue, he could give me no accompt of the principles of his art, and also he was often in drink. It was a wretched thing to see, a drunk man paid to stick pins in a simple mynded wuman. He tryed in hir eye brows, hir nostrills, hir mouth, breists and privitie. When she screamd out he says he must try mair, for their are different sorts of witches mark, and the subtilest witches may easily feigne pain wheir their is none and hide it wheir it is felt. Eftir an hour or 2 of testing, using pins the lenth of ones finger, and one he thrust in to the head, the man got Lisie Moodie to delate 5 other witches in Hadington, 2 of them midwyfes and one a man. These ware examined and subject to the same. Also he kept them from sleip, a commoun practise, for to deprive of sleip makes a persoun say oniething to get it, or they become as a dremer and know not what they say.

  I felt a danger in protesting but I can no longer uphald this way of battling wt Satan, since if these unhappie creatures are his servants it is by delusion, ignorance and poverty he has won them. Not I nor any thing could save them thogh once Lisie Mudie had confesst and delated them. She and they ware all deid by the months end.

  Now I did fear greatly for the accused at Dumbartoun. John Eleis was their counsel but he faced Prestoun, who would doe what he could to keip the other commisionars to a firm line agaynst witchcraft. I never saw couzin John sa douncast. The effigies ware but feble childish dauds of things, wt two stumps for legs and two for arms, holes made wt the fingers for eys mouth &c. That they had a likenes to any man was a thing to be lauched at, but that was not a relevance. The case turnd on the weemen’s fame, which was not good, and that Hamilton of Barnes had dyed. When the assize was met in August, half its members ware long aquent wt Hamilton, and the rest believed the weemen guilty fra their awn opinions or the commoun news of the countrie. Prestoun fed their prejudices well. All five ware condemned and brunt.

  I sat many nichts in Paintons wt John and we turnd these afairs over in our heads. It seimd to us the haill kingdome was engaged in selfe destruction, like a chirurgeon that bleids him self to death beleiving him self sick, when in fact he is only a little melancholick in the mynd.

  And forby the witches there was othir work afoote throgh the summer. In June Sir John Nisbet the King’s Advocat gott an assistant that he never wishd for, Sir Geo Mackenzie of Rosehaugh. Sir John was ever suspected by Sharp & Rothes after his failure wt Mitchel. He or rather his wife was made great compliments of silver plait, fine silk claith, delicats of food and drink by the frends of other imprisoned fanatick gentlemen and ministers. My lords had no objectioun to bribes – how could they? – but to the source.

  I never met a more ambitious man than Sir John’s new apprentice Mackenzie. He knew that he was but ane step from his maister’s ain seat. Soe Mackenzie spent July & August opening up all the Crown’s outstanding cases to see which wt some fresh work myght be succesfullie broght before a court. This impressed the Privy Council, and Nisbet was removed and Mackenzie made King’s Advocat in his place. In a week he brought forward two forgers that had been months lying in the tolbuith, presented his case, and got them hangd.

  ‘It’s a clear signal,’ said John Eleis to John Lauder, on one of their sessions in Painton’s. ‘He is pit there for a purpose, and the purpose is tae clear oot aw Nisbet’s failures. Mackenzie is a creature o Lauderdale, but Lauderdale is losin favour. He isna seen tae be hard enough on the fanatics. He will drive Mackenzie on, tae prove his ain worth tae the King and tae keep Sharp’s neb oot o places where it has nae richt tae be. Twa things will happen afore this year’s oot, John, mark my word. The first is that Lauderdale will come doon like a wolf on the west country, tae break up the conventicles, for he canna survive if he lets thoosans o armed fanatics gaither and defy the law wi impunity. The saicont is, he will gie in tae Sharp, and bring back James Mitchel for trial. Mackenzie will be instructit that he is tae get him tae the scaffold if he wishes tae rise ony further in the King’s estimation.’

  ‘Sax months syne,’ said Lauder, ‘I would hae disputed wi ye on baith points. But noo I think ye’re richt. Maister Mitchel himsel was o the same opinion when I saw him in June. In fact, I find masel noo haein tae mak representation tae ye on his accoont.’

  It was the first time he had mentioned Mitchel’s request to anybody. Now he feared in case he had left it too late, but Eleis was easy on the subject.

  ‘We shall hae tae get the Cooncil’s dispensation, but I see nae problem wi it. In fact, I ken awready that the Dean would relish the opportunity. And I believe oor new King’s Advocate would be very happy in a set-tae wi the pair o us. There is naebody he likes better tae lock horns wi than Lockhart.’ Eleis clapped Lauder’s arm. ‘I’ll see tae it, John, dinna fash.’

  ‘It relieves me o an obligation,’ Lauder said, ‘and I thank ye for it. I can dae naethin mair for him.’

  Eleis looked inquisitively at him. ‘I’m thinkin,’ he said, ‘that ye must hae had somethin in exchange for the obligation. Ye wouldna want tae share that wi me?’

  Lauder laughed. ‘A daft notion,’ he said. ‘I had an idea that Mitchel would hae been able tae help me oot wi some information, that was aw. It was a delicate kinna affair.’

  ‘And did he? Help ye oot, I mean.’

  ‘A little.’ Lauder was treading cautiously. ‘John, if I kent onythin that micht help ye in Mitchel’s case, I would tell ye. But I dinna. In fact, I ken a thing or twa that micht mak things worse for him.’

  ‘Weill, dinna deave me wi them,’ said Eleis. ‘Cats that get oot o pokes hae a bad habit
o lowpin on the legs o folk that dinna like cats. But I’m glad if ye got somethin frae him. It’s mair than onybody else has got, though I canna think whit it would be.’

  ‘He confirmed somethin for me,’ said Lauder. ‘No an important thing mebbe, but it sortit oot some confusion in ma heid. He confirmed for me that somebody else we baith kent, that was thocht plain daft, had a puckle mair sense nor onybody gied her credit for.’

  Edinburgh, 12 April 1670

  Jean woke and knew at once what day it was. Thoughts blurred and confused in her head these days, she misminded some things and plain forgot others, but nothing could have erased this knowledge. It was the day of her death. A certainty had been given to her that was given only to the judicially condemned: when the sun went down, she would not see it; before darkness fell, she would have been snuffed out like a candle.

  If ever there was a day when she needed the skills of her craft, this was it. To be able to put a dwam on her jailers, shoogle the locks and open the great heavy doors of the Tolbooth. To slip on the guise of a cat, slink out, and take herself off to the shore. To sail on the seas in a sieve or an eggshell, or fly through the air on a stick, away, away from this room, this town, this country, from its malice and cruelty and brutal religion. She wanted to be in another place, another time. If she could only be transported to somewhere she could not be hurt, somewhere she could be safe, and have that feeling just for a few moments, it would make the rest easier to thole. But there was no such place. She had been born wrong in every way – wrong sex, wrong house, wrong family, wrong century – and today was the day she was going to have to pay for it.

  They had taken the chain off her leg at night. John Vanse was a good lad, he felt sorry for her against his better judgment. You could see the doubt in his eyes: if he did her a kindness, would she make him regret it? If he gave her a tender look, would she seize on it as a weakness? That was what witches did. They beguiled you. It was in their nature. No wonder he felt for her: she could not help herself. But she looked in his eyes and saw something else – fear. It was the same fear that she had too, but which she kept tied up and gagged in the deepest part of her. Fear of what the world could do to you. She would not show her fear today. She was determined. She would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her afraid.