To Hunt A Husband

Chapter Two-1

Chapter TwoDalkeith is the market town of Midlothian, a bustling place of inns, merchants and small businesses. It is a town where farmers buy and sell, innkeepers charge too-high prices for their goods, lodging houses cater for travelling shearers, curlers play their roaring game, cricketers cricket, and an annual games attracts thousands of spectators and competitors. At one time or other, all the people from the countryside will gather in Dalkeith, including the Moffat women from Winter Lodge. That late September day of 1842 Dalkeith was even busier than usual for it seemed that every collier in the world had congregated in the town.

“Your father was right,” Mother said as she looked out of the window of our coach. “There are hundreds of colliers here. What in the world could have induced them to gather in such numbers?”

The colliers were indeed in large numbers. Everywhere I looked, colliers were standing in small groups, or marching purposefully this way and that, or talking in earnest knots at street corners. Although they were all dressed as respectable people, I knew they were miners by their appearance and demeanour. Muscular men with set, pale faces from working underground, many carried the blue scars of old injuries, while most wielded a walking stick. I recognised a few faces as men who worked in our pit at Winterhill, although I would be hard-pressed to put a name to them.

“Perhaps we should go home,” I suggested.

“Nonsense!” Mother gave me a friendly poke in the ribs. “They're only men, and some are our tenants anyway. Come along, Robyn. We will do an hour or so teaching at the ragged school. After that, I wish to visit a shop or two, and no man alive will stop me, not your father and certainly not a group of miners.”

Nothing loath, I obeyed. Although I must admit to a certain nervousness as I walked past the groups of colliers. However, none gave me so much as a second look – they were so engrossed with their own affairs. Indeed one or two lifted their hats with a polite, “Good morning, Mrs Moffat, good morning Miss Moffat,” to which we responded in kind.

The ragged school was quiet that morning, with fewer children than usual, and the middle-aged teacher distracted by the crowds outside. Mother and I did our best, reading to the infants and trying to teach the basics of writing as the teacher continually turned to stare out the window.

“We'll finish early today,” the teacher said at last. “I am a little concerned about the safety of the children with all these colliers in the streets.”

“If I know colliers,” Mother said, “they will pose no danger to little children.”

“I am not so sure.” The teacher had made up her mind, so we gentlewomen helpers had to comply. We ushered the pupils outside where they happily scattered among the colliers.

“More time for the shopping.” Mother led me at a fast pace towards the centre of Dalkeith. As we entered the first of the milliner's shops, the colliers began to move, although I had not heard anybody give them an order.

“Where are they going?” Mother asked in a tone of wonder as if hundreds of grown men could not decide their own movements.

“Up that close,” I pointed to a narrow lane that ran off the northwest side of the High Street.

“So they are,” Mother said, and for some reason not unconnected with curiosity, we found ourselves walking up the same close in the wake of the colliers.

“Now they are entering that building.” I pointed to the Freemasons' Hall, a building that hardly appeared 100 years old.

“Maybe they're all Freemasons,” Mother said, and promptly lost interest as a length of purple linen in a window took her attention. “Now that would make a fine dress for your wedding if Andrew Dewar ever makes up his mind to ask properly.”

We spent some time in the Dalkeith shops, for in truth living in Winter Lodge without distractions could be a mite tedious, and when we emerged, the town was like nothing I had ever seen before.

“Mother!” I stopped in some alarm. “Look at the army.”

Opposite the closed doors of the Freemasons' Hall stood rank after rank of soldiers, with their scarlet uniforms bright in the autumn sun and their fists closed around long brown muskets. The officers stood in front, tall, erect men with long swords at their waists and the power of life and death in their command.

“Stay close, Robyn.” Mother's hand gripped my arm. “We'd best be away from this place.”

For one minute, I wondered if Adam Carmichael would be present to witness the disturbance, and then I heard the tramp of marching feet and dismissed him from my mind. With so much happening in Dalkeith that day, it was natural that a crowd should gather, with women and men clustering around the Freemasons' Hall, staring at the soldiers while keeping a wary eye on their muskets.

“What's happening?” The words rose to the grey skies above.

“What's to do?” a woman screeched. “Look at all the sojer-boys!”

“What the devil is the army doing here?”

Perhaps the only person who could fully answer that question was the Duke of Buccleuch, the principal local landowner, for he was a dominant figure, giving orders to the military and to the body of 20 or so special constables who also now poured into the centre of the town. In their long, blue, swallow-tail coats and glossy top hats, the specials looked quite efficient.

“Come away, Robyn.” Mother's hand was firm on my arm.

“Not yet,” I insisted. “I wish to see what's happening.”

“It's not ladylike,” Mother said, looked at me and nodded, vaguely smiling. “But I am also curious.”

Squeezing into the entrance to a common close, we waited and watched. Luckily we were both fairly tall for women and, if we stood on tip-toe and stretched our necks, we could watch events over the heads of the equally curious crowd.

“I hope none of our neighbours can see us,” Mother said.

“If they do,” I reasoned, “then they must also be watching.”

The duke, with his chamberlain, Mr Moncrieff, marched to the front door of the Freemasons' Hall to demand entrance. The buzz of the crowd eased as people waited to see what would happen, and the soldiers seemed to take a collective deep breath. I saw one of the officers, a lieutenant I believe, put an expectant hand to the hilt of his sword.

“Oh, please don't let there be any trouble,” Mother said. “We should have left when we saw the army.”

“It's too late now.” I gestured to the crowd. “We'd never get through all those people.”

The hammer of the duke's fist on the door echoed around the street. I saw one of the soldiers fidget, with his hands moving to the trigger of his musket, and then I noticed Adam Carmichael in the crowd. He was on the opposite side of the street from us, sitting on Chetak and equally interested in watching. There was no humour in his eyes, which were darkly reflective.

“Mother,” I said. “There's the man I saw this morning.”

Hush, Robyn.” Mother's grip on my arm tightened. “Look what's happening.”

After initially refusing access to the duke, the colliers inside the hall eventually opened the door. Immediately they did, the duke and his chamberlain hurried inside, followed by a rush of the blue-uniformed special constables, all seemingly eager to be first in and all carrying their long staffs of office.

Special constables have a dark reputation for violence and ill-discipline. Unlike the full-time, disciplined and trained policemen who walk the beat and deal with every-day crimes such as petty theft and drunkenness, the specials are civilians recruited for specific events such as riots or disorder. Mainly from the respectable strata of society, they are often heavy-handed in their eagerness to restore what they see as the natural order. Knowing such things, I was more than a little shocked when I saw my Andrew Dewar among the blue-coated ranks that stormed into the hall.

“Mr Dewar! Andrew!” I could not help myself. I shouted the name without thought and immediately hoped that the noise of the crowd drowned my voice. As bad luck would have it, the crowd had hushed at that moment, and my shout rang out, clear as a church bell on a sleepy Sunday, right across the centre of Dalkeith.

Happily, most people were too intent on the unfolding drama at the hall to pay much heed, but Adam Carmichael turned his head my way. Looking directly at me, he frowned, as if trying to remember where he had seen me before, lifted a hand in brief acknowledgement, and returned his attention to the hall.

“He heard you,” Mother murmured.

“I know.” I was torn between watching Mr Carmichael and the drama in which Andrew was playing his part.

“Andrew heard you bellowing like a fishwife.” Mother was not referring to Mr Carmichael but Andrew. “Now he will wonder what sort of manners you have.” She shook her head. “It's best to let men think you are eminently respectable if you wish them to marry you, Robyn. After the event, it is not so important.”

“Yes, Mother.” I knew the rules of the hunt. Men pursued women until the women caught them. I only wished that Andrew was more ardent in his pursuit.

While I had been thinking of personal matters, the drama before us had continued. With Andrew and the other specials at his back, Mr Moncrieff read out the names of three of the colliers and demanding they surrender themselves to the law. Not surprisingly, none of the miners stepped forward, so, after an awkward pause, the duke and his entourage left the hall and waited outside. With special constables on one side of the street, tapping their staffs in their palms, and the army standing at attention on the other, it seemed that there would indeed be trouble in Dalkeith.

Fighting my nerves, I caught Andrew's eye and smiled. Trying to look tough and capable with his colleagues, he ignored me as if I were not there, which awakened the devil within me.

“Should I go and talk to Mr Dewar?” I asked.

“No!” Mother said at once. “I think we should leave here.” Despite her words, she made no effort to move. I knew that Mother liked a good drama as much as everybody else. Today's events would give her plenty of conversational material for the next few dull weeks in Winter Lodge.

Although Andrew did not glance in my direction, Adam Carmichael did far more. I could feel his eyes probing me as if wondering what on earth I was doing here. I looked up again, caught his gaze and smiled. Again he raised a hand in acknowledgement.

“That Carmichael fellow is watching me,” I murmured, responding with a small nod.

“I am not surprised,”' Mother said. “And with you making such a spectacle of yourself. He must be wondering what sort of daughter your mother brought up.”

I closed my mouth as the door to the hall opened, and the miners quietly emerged. The first man looked at the waiting specials, squared his shoulders, gripped his walking stick firmly and marched on, with others following behind.

“There won't be any trouble,” I said, and then the specials pounced. I was surprised at the energy with which Andrew grabbed one of the miners, holding him firmly as another special snapped handcuffs on the unfortunate man's wrists.

“That was your Andrew,” Mother said as if I could not see a man three yards in front of my face.

The specials arrested another of the colliers and lunged at a third. Rather than quietly submitting, this man eluded the clumsy grasp of the special, twisted away, cracked Andrew on the knuckles with his walking stick and ran. I blinked, for the escapee was the very man I had seen with Wild Will that very morning.

“Halloa! Catch that man!” Andrew raised the hue and cry.

“Stop, thief!” another Special shouted, and a dozen of the blue-uniformed men ran in pursuit of the fleeing collier.

“Come on, Robyn.” Mother took hold of my arm once more. “Let's get home. We've wasted sufficient time here.”