The Fanatic

‘Why do you look upon that head?’ Weir asked. ‘Not with regret, nor in adulation, I can see that. What does the dead mouth of James Graham tell you?’

‘Naethin,’ Mitchel said. ‘It is silent. I never saw him in life, but when I was a bairn he had Scotland chitterin on its knees, and folk fleggin ye wi tales o his army. But when I look noo I’m no feart. And he disna say ocht.’

Weir tapped the ground with his staff. ‘Or ye dinna hear ocht,’ he said. He shifted his hand from Mitchel’s shoulder to his elbow, turned him with the slightest pressure.

‘Walk with me, James,’ he said, once more in his clipped, careful voice. ‘I was at the Netherbow Port, inspecting the guard, and now I am on my way to a prayer-meeting. I would be obliged if ye’d convoy me to the Grassmarket.’

They began to walk up the street, past the hulk of St Giles, Weir’s left hand cleiking Mitchel’s arm, while his right leaned heavily on the staff. His grip was tight, but he seemed to be labouring on the hill, like a man well beyond his mid-fifties. When he stumbled, Mitchel asked hesitantly if he felt unwell.

‘I am fine, I am fine,’ he said. ‘Just weary. It’s a hard path that we have trod since Graham was dealt with. Scotland was delivered out of his hands, it seems, only to be given over to Cromwell and his vile English army. And now they say when Cromwell and the English go, we’ll hae a Stewart back again. All this suffering, all this long dark nicht, and for what? You say you heard nothing, but when I look up at Graham’s head, I sometimes fancy I hear him laughing at us.’

He stopped as they reached the top of the West Bow, and they stood looking down the long street, across which a few well-wrapped figures were flitting. Weir coughed and spat on the ground.

‘I had him in my charge the night before he was executed, did ye know that? In that very prison which his head now adorns. He laughed at us then, the savage. Combing his locks and preening himself, and brushing out his finery as if God would care a docken what he looked like when He cast him into the furnace. And he spurned the services of the ministers sent to attend him by the General Assembly – good men, strong in the Covenant that he himself had signed and then betrayed, Davie Dickson and James Durham and James Guthrie and Robert Traill. He said he, the Marquis of Montrose, would make his own peace with God. Doubtless he’d have corrected God if God didna address him by that false title. He was a proud and foolish man, James. There was a huge scaffold biggit for him, thirty feet high, and the street was tight with folk come to see him die. But when I took him out there in the forenoon, he still would not show remorse for his crimes. He climbed that thirty feet as if he were going to his bed.’

He broke off and drew himself up to his full height, and rapped the staff hard on the stones. ‘But we are stronger,’ he said sharply. ‘We are stronger because we have God with us. The godly will prevail.’

‘I believe that,’ said Mitchel, as they started to walk again. ‘It is oor destiny. Principal Leighton at the college, afore oor laureation, tendered tae us the Covenant, and I subscribed tae it. Ye canna tak some and no the haill o that document. It is signing away your life tae Christ.’

‘The life of the haill nation, James, but you see how many who have signed it have fallen away from its principles. Beware of Robert Leighton even. His tongue speaks the right words, but he is ower tolerant. The land is full of holy wobblers like him, and they are a great danger. At least a man like Montrose, you could mark him for an enemy.’

At the foot of the Bow, where their ways parted, Weir stopped again, but did not release his grip.

‘Will you not come to the meeting, Maister Mitchel? You a graduate and a man of the right party. Why do we not see you at our meetings? Do you not like my company, or the sound of my voice?’

‘Na, na, I hae often heard ye preach,’ said Mitchel. ‘And admired ye, tae.’

‘You should hear me pray,’ said Weir. ‘A sermon is a text with a wind at its back. But prayer, prayer is wind and fire together. Why do you not come?’

Mitchel shook his head, and looked away to the bottom of the Grassmarket, behind which the last of the light was now a deepening red in the sky. ‘I am uncertain,’ he said, then added in an embarrassed mumble, ‘if I hae grace.’

He felt Weir shift his position, heard him sigh heavily.

‘You are very young, James. Ye needna be ashamed. You have grace. Look at me when I tell ye this. You have grace. You are of the elect. I can feel it.’

‘I must be sure, though,’ Mitchel said. He looked at the blaze in the older man’s eyes, and longed for such conviction.

‘There’s no harm in prayer, even if you are in a state of doubt,’ Weir told him. ‘Prayer can lead to assurance. You should come.’

But Mitchel stepped back. ‘I am indebted tae ye, sir. And I will come. But no this nicht. This nicht I must pray alane.’

Weir nodded. ‘Very well. But this will not last. The Lord will find you work, James, and you will receive assurance. Believe me, it will happen.’

Edinburgh, April 1997

Jackie Halkit left a message on Hugh Hardie’s answer-machine: ‘Thought I might go on your tour tonight. Maybe see you there?’ He didn’t return the call, but she decided to go anyway. It didn’t matter about paying three or four pounds or whatever the fee was. She was more interested in seeing Carlin playing the ghost. Since the meeting at Dawson’s it was as if he had set up camp in her mind.

It was still early spring, and cold at night. Only seven other people turned up: three Japanese visitors – two men and a woman – and a slightly drunk office party – three women and a man. The man kept going ‘Whooooh!’ and running his fingers over his companions’ necks. It was amazing to Jackie that they seemed to get almost as much of a kick out of this as he did. When the guide started to talk the man settled down, and tried instead to impress the women with the seriousness with which he paid attention. ‘That’s very interesting. God, I never knew that, did you know that?’ he would say periodically, and chuckle knowingly at the guide’s jokes. The Japanese said nothing, but smiled politely when the others laughed.

Jackie had to admit, the tour was quite well done. The script was informative and not too patronising, though it spared little in the way of gore and the macabre. The guide was dressed in black, and introduced himself, removing a hood with rough-cut eyeholes, as a former public executioner who had made it his life’s work to gather all the sins of the city together. He started with a dramatic gob on the heart-shaped setts in Parliament Square which marked the site of the entrance to the old Tolbooth: it was an act, he explained, originally performed by prisoners when they were released from the jail, but since these unfortunates were all long dead he felt an obligation, as the man who had despatched so many of their fellows on the scaffold, to uphold the tradition on their behalf. ‘Oh,’ said the office party man, ‘I thought you were a Hibs fan.’ The guide shook his head. ‘I make it a rule never to discuss football, there’s been too much blood in these streets already,’ he said. The office man was delighted to get such a lad-conscious response. The guide led his party up the High Street to the Lawnmarket, telling stories all the way, then, via the surviving upper section of the West Bow, down some steps onto Victoria Street, towards the site of his former work in the Grassmarket, thus retracing the old route of those condemned to die.

At the top of Anderson’s Close he paused, raising his arm ominously.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, I must warn you before we enter the next stage of our journey, that you are about to learn of one of the wickedest and foulest personages who ever stalked the streets of Auld Reikie. And I must warn you too, that some say he still roams the wynds and closes hereabouts. I refer to the so-called Wizard of the West Bow, the notorious Major Thomas Weir.’

He brought the party down into the narrow close, and invited them to gather in around him. There wasn’t much room. The man from the office party took the opportunity to put his arms around the shoulders of two of his colleagues. Jackie moved away from them down the slope, just behind the guide.

‘In the late 1600s,’ the guide said, ‘this part of Edinburgh was packed with dwellings. Some of the buildings here were the skyscrapers of their day, rising ten, eleven or even more storeys. Sanitation was at a minimum and disease was rife. Beware! If you hear the cry Gardy-loo!, it means somebody is about to throw the contents of a chamberpot or bucket out of a window. Mind where you step – this close was once called the Stinking Close and it still has a certain je ne sais quoi about it. None of you are afraid of rats, I hope? You won’t be too upset if we disturb any as we continue on our way?’

There was a scuffling sound at the foot of the wall next to Jackie, and something shot across the close and hit her shoe. She let out a short scream and jumped. The thing skeltered on and collided with the unattached office-girl, who also screamed and threw herself into her friends. The Japanese visitors yelped and grabbed at one another. The rat careered off the wall, flipped over and then disappeared on its back round the corner.

The guide gave them only a few seconds to recover. Everybody was suddenly laughing and gasping with relief as he ushered them on round the dog-leg. ‘Was it us?’ he was saying breathlessly. ‘Was it us or something else that disturbed it?’ Jackie found herself being pushed forward. Ahead of her she saw him, Major Weir, filling the close like a wind, moving silently and smoothly away. At the Cowgatehead end he turned, and for a moment was illuminated from behind, white-faced, with a long staff swaying beside him. Then he was gone.

The office man was speechless. Everybody else was gibbering away in their own language. The guide let them get the excitement out of their systems before filling them in on whose ghost it was they had just seen.

It was very effective, Jackie conceded that. She only half-took in what the guide was saying, but realised that, in terms of the tour experience, his words were not too important anyway. They were history babble. The effect was everything. And Carlin had played his part well. He had looked threatening, ghostly, ancient, yes, all these things. But something else … she couldn’t figure it.

‘If you go down Leith Walk,’ the guide concluded, ‘very nice down at the waterfront these days – nice wine-bars, bistros et cetera – well, if you go down Leith Walk you pass the spot where Major Weir was burnt to death. It’s no longer there, of course, but it was just beside where the Lothian Transport bus depot now is. So we can conclude that the place of public execution has become the place of public transportation.’

The office man laughed. ‘Well, there you go,’ he said. ‘I never knew that.’

The group made its way along the Cowgate. Jackie kept looking for the cloaked figure. She knew from Hugh Hardie that Carlin was supposed to appear again. A few people, in twos and threes, were strolling in each direction. None of them was like a ghost.

‘Would ye say I was depressed?’

‘Dae ye want ma opinion?’

‘Aye. Ye were that guid on weirdness. Would ye say I’m showin any o the symptoms o depression?’

‘Don’t get fuckin smart wi me, son. How would I ken? You’re the one that was gaun tae be a doctor.’

‘No that kinna doctor. Look, I’m no lookin for a cure. I jist would like yer views on the subject.’

‘Tell us yer symptoms then.’

‘It’s like there’s a fire in the small o ma back. I start sweatin aw ower ma body. I canna work up enthusiasm for onythin. I’ve got a shitey wee job and I canna even finish the shift. I feel physically run doon aw the time. Seik. Knackert.’

‘There’s a lot of flu aboot.’

‘And I keep gaun intae dwams. Real stuff disna feel real and the dwammy stuff does. Does that sound like the behaviour of an emotionally balanced person?’

‘Na, but we ken ye’re no that. We ken ye’re a fucked up, awol, fairychummin moonlowper. In yer ain terms yer behaviour is entirely normal. Dodgy terms of coorse, but we’ll jouk an let that jaw gang by. Mebbe there’s nuthin much wrang wi ye. Ye jist canna face the tedium o everyday life. Ye’re bored by it because everythin seems pointless and cruel. So yer mind switches aff and yer body follows. How am I daein?’

‘No bad. But it’s no so much like ma mind switches aff, mair like it switches on. It’s like the past isna past, it’s right there happenin in front o me. Tae me.’

‘The past? Yer ain past?’

‘Ither folk’s past. Frae way back, fuckin yonks. I’m supposed tae be playin Weir’s ghost but it feels mair solid than that. Real.’

‘Let’s talk aboot yer ain past.’

‘Na, let’s no. This is mair important.’

‘That’s a matter o opinion.’

‘It’s important that I’m seein aw these auld images. But they’re no mine.’

‘Ye’re tellin me ye’re dreamin stuff frae somebody else’s life?’

‘No dreamin exactly. I could unnerstaun that. I’ve been daein aw this readin so it wouldna surprise me if that was comin intae ma heid, when I was asleep ken. But this is different. It’s like I’ve got a front row seat at the pictures.’

‘So, if it’s botherin ye that much, ye ken whit tae dae. Naebody’s forcin ye tae stey. Staun up an walk oot the bluidy picture-hoose.’

‘Aye.’

‘Weill?’

‘I canna.’

Mr MacDonald beamed at him. ‘I have something for you,’ he said.

‘Guid,’ said Carlin. ‘Cause I feel like I need somethin. A way in. It’s like I’m no close enough.’

‘Do you really want to get close to Major Weir?’ said MacDonald.

‘It’s no a question o wantin. You ken whit I mean. Aw these ministers were gaun intae him in prison, tryin tae get him tae repent, but they werena gettin close at all. Was there naebody else? Was he totally friendless? Somebody must have gone tae see him.’

MacDonald was holding a manilla folder. They moved out of the way of the other readers and librarians.

‘You would think so,’ said MacDonald. ‘It’s not often you get the chance to view the incarnation of pure evil. But maybe that was the trouble. He was too dangerous. His former Covenanting comrades couldn’t put enough distance between him and them, once his crimes were made known. And the nature of the crimes – he was dangerous in a much deeper sense than just political. His sister was accused of witchcraft but claimed that the real sorcerer was him, not her. People took that very seriously in 1670 – they believed in the immortality of the soul, that life on earth was just a prelude, an overture to eternity. Major Weir was up to his oxters in stuff that would send you straight to Hell.

‘The only folk that wanted to visit him in prison were his enemies – Royalists going to gloat at the fallen Presbyterian, or Presbyterian ministers going to look on the face of Satan. And then, he was convicted on a Saturday and executed on the Monday. He was probably in the Tolbooth for less than a week before the trial, while they prepared the evidence against him, so there wasn’t a lot of time for sympathetic visitors.’

‘How do you ken aw this?’ Carlin said. ‘Is this a pet subject of yours or somethin?’

‘Your interest revived mine,’ said MacDonald. ‘I had the opportunity to turn over a few pages this morning. As I said before, when you’ve been here as long as I have, everything becomes familiar. The Weirs have a certain morbid appeal, but you have to see them in the context of the times. Religious terrorism, political repression, economic uncertainty … it’s not surprising some individuals went off the rails, is it?’

‘I was thinkin aboot this guy Mitchel,’ said Carlin. ‘The man that tried to shoot the archbishop. Him and Weir used tae ken each ither. Where was he when Weir was in trouble?’

‘In Holland probably,’ said MacDonald. ‘Although now that you mention it we don’t really know where he was in 1670. Wandering about trying not to get arrested, doubtless. No, I don’t see how he could have got near Weir. But I have somebody here for you who did.’

He handed Carlin the folder. ‘Sir John Lauder,’ he said. The folder was about an inch thick between stiff cardboard covers. It had a label on the front bearing a catalogue number, and down the spine another label which read ANE SECRET BOOK. It felt ponderous and dense.

‘He became Lord Fountainhall, a judge in the Court of Session,’ MacDonald explained. ‘When he wrote this – if he wrote it – he was just plain Maister John Lauder, an advocate. I told you yesterday that I thought there was more on Major Weir somewhere. I knew it was in an unusual source but I couldn’t remember where until I was up in the Edinburgh Room this morning and I overheard someone checking their council ward. They gave their address as Fountainhall Road and it suddenly clicked.’

Carlin flipped open the front cover. There was a typescript, a blue carbon copy on foolscap sheets:

Ane Secret Book of John Lauderlater Lord Fountainhallbeing his account of sundry matters of public interestmany not revealed in his Historical Observes and Historical Notices

transcribed and preserved by D. Crosbie and presented toEdinburgh Public Library 1912

‘Lauder kept records about everything,’ said MacDonald. ‘He kept journals and notes about both his private affairs and public life from the time he was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates – just a few weeks before Mitchel tried to kill Archbishop Sharp – right through to the Union and beyond. He didn’t approve of the Union. A lot of what he wrote was published in the nineteenth century by historical societies like the Bannatyne Club. He’s regarded as an important source for the whole period.

‘Now he mentions in one of the published journals that he did visit Weir in prison on the day he died, but he doesn’t say much about him – except that he was a monster of depravity and deserved all he got. Standard sort of response which wouldn’t really help you much, but the document you have in your hands, that’s another story. You see, many of Lauder’s manuscripts were lost. There’s a story that most of what was preserved was discovered in a tobacconist’s by a lawyer named Crosbie in the later eighteenth century. You’ll note the name D. Crosbie appears on the title-page of that document. One is tempted to presume it was a descendant. The earlier Crosbie is supposed to have been half the model for Sir Walter Scott’s lawyer Mr Pleydell in Guy Mannering by the way – I’m sorry, this is hardly relevant, is it?’

Carlin shook his head. ‘No, but it’s awright,’ he said. ‘Tell me aboot this thing I’m haudin.’

‘To be honest,’ said MacDonald, ‘I’m a wee bit embarrassed by it. I mean, it has no historical credentials, there is no proof of its authenticity at all. There’s a note at the front which says it was typed from a handwritten copy, made by this D. Crosbie person’s grandfather, of an original manuscript. The original was crumbling to dust and the copy was virtually illegible, so it’s claimed. But we have no idea who D. Crosbie was – no address, no autobiographical details – nothing. The library has no record of where the document came from, or why it was accepted. There’s no corresponding copy in the National Library, or anywhere else that I know of, although there must have been a top copy. Nor is there any guarantee that John Lauder even wrote it, although the internal evidence is reasonably strong: the characteristically erratic spellings, the references to individuals Lauder knew and so on. On the other hand, it’s not altogether in his style. Not as lawyerish as you’d expect. I don’t think professional historians have ever taken it seriously – most of them probably don’t know it exists. Possibly it’s a great missing chunk of our history, but – and this is why I suggest you should be cautious and regard it with the utmost suspicion – it’s more likely to be an elaborate fake.

‘However, there’s no obvious reason why anyone would perpetrate such a hoax, unless the library paid money for the thing, but that would be unlikely and certainly then I’d expect much better documentation. The title-page text would suggest it was a donation. So why go to all the bother of inventing all this? If, by some chance, it is by Lauder – and I don’t see how we’ll ever know that now – it certainly fills a gap. Among the manuscripts of his that went missing were twenty years’ worth of his Historical Observes, which would have included all of the 1670s.’

MacDonald looked flustered, as if his statement had taken a lot out of him. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ he finished. ‘Have a look at it, by all means, but … well, I’d be interested to know what you think.’

There were little beads of sweat on his brow, under the latticework of thin red hair. He took off his glasses and wiped his head with a large faded blue handkerchief. ‘I must go now,’ he said. ‘Must get on. That really belongs upstairs, but as you’re consulting books from this department too, it’ll be all right to look at it here.’

He turned away and seemed almost to dart back behind the counter, which was unoccupied. Still mopping his head, he pushed through a door beyond which Carlin could see stacks of leatherbound books. He watched MacDonald’s round-shouldered figure until it turned left and disappeared among the shelves. He found a vacant desk and sat down at it with the typescript. He opened it, read the note by D. Crosbie that MacDonald had mentioned, and turned to the next page.

10th day of Januar 1678 – I am just now returned from the tryal of James Mitchel at the Criminall Court. He was pannelled for attempting the life of the Archbischop of St Androis. This tryal is the sum and end of many bad things, that I have sein and heard thir last ten years, whilk I maun putt doune tho I fear to doe it. Unsemely and stinking are the wayes emploied to sicker this man’s doom, but soe is al thats gane befoir. I am sweert to write anent this afair in my other journal. This is ane new and secret book.

It is ane yeir since Mitchel was putt to the Bass, and but nine month since I socht leave to see him there from my father in law Lord Abbotshall …

Edinburgh, April 1677

Sir Andrew Ramsay, Lord Abbotshall, till lately Lord Provost of Edinburgh, considered leaving his long, luxurious wig on the stand where he had placed it earlier, while looking over his accounts. It was a very fine wig, thick and lavishly curled, but it made his head hot and got in the way when he was trying to read. Still, he did not really like to be seen without it; he was approaching sixty, and the wig gave his large face a dignity it otherwise lacked. Without his expensive clothes and headpiece he might have been taken for a publican or a shopkeeper. Not that Sir Andrew had anything against publicans and shopkeepers; on the contrary, he was their prince. Or, at least, he once had been.

He was expecting his son-in-law and although John Lauder was family, Sir Andrew still liked to impress his formidable personality upon the younger man. He stood up, took the wig and, in front of a mirror, carefully lowered it onto his head. He laid the ends of it over his ample shoulders and briefly admired himself, large, sedate and solemn in the glass. That was his style in these times of wild ranters and gaunt rebels. Some might think him fat and graceless, but he saw himself as a dancing-master; nobody could jouk and birl like Sir Andrew Ramsay when it came to politics. He was the great survivor. ‘Andra, ye’re a richt continuum,’ a friend had recently told him. And there was no better evidence of his political brilliance than the fact that, over three decades of war, religious upheaval and governments of utterly different complexions, he had become progressively and irresistibly more and more rich.

He cleared his throat with a grumble of self-approval, and sat back down to his books, his dreams of political intrigue, and his decanter of brandy. He was a merchant, the godfather of the city’s trade, and a laird with extensive properties in Fife and Haddingtonshire. He had served as provost under two regimes, first during the Commonwealth and then after the Restoration, when it suited the new government to install someone with a proven record, rather than trust to the vagaries of council elections. Once he had consolidated a power base on the council, elections were reintroduced and proceeded without alarm. Sir Andrew managed to remain Lord Provost year after year as if, like some portly extension of the royal prerogative, he had been restored to a throne of his own.