Candlemas by Shirley McKay

I
    The candlemaker’s boy was thankful for the moon. Without its friendly glare, he would have to make his way through darkness down the path closest to the cliff, perilous by day, let alone at night. And no one but a lunatic would care to take that chance.
    A crowd of yellow pinpricks clustered at the Swallowgate, where lanterns cast a dimly well-intentioned light, but over to the west the darkness pooled and chasmed, blacking out the cliff top and the gulf beyond. And westward was the crackling house, set back from the town, where the salt winds might snatch the rank air, and the sea water carry it off.
    In the year of plague, the dead had been laid down to rest in this place. So much that was noxious was settled in the wind. The candlemaker’s boy muttered out a prayer, and shuddered as he passed. He thanked God when he came upon the low flame of the crackling house, swinging at the door as the law required. A slender skelp of taper guttered in the draught; the candlemaker grudged to spare the smallest light.
    The boy entered the crackling house, pulling off his hat. ‘I have done what you asked.’
    The candlemaker, bent over his great greasy pot, did not look up. ‘Is that a fact?’
    â€˜I went to a’ they houses, a’ the ones you said. The auld wife at the last one wasnae best pleased. Shewis not pleased at all.’
    â€˜No? And why was that?’
    â€˜She said ye had not sent her all that she had asked for. And she did not like the candles that you sent. She said that the tallow was filled fullocack.’
    â€˜That guid wife is a lady. She did not say that.’
    â€˜No. She said – ’ the candlemaker’s boy assumed a high-pitched plaintive voice, pinching at his nose, ‘Please to tell your master, there is offal in it. Oh, but it does stink!’
    â€˜You do the lady wrong, to mock at her like that,’ the candlemaker warned.
    â€˜She is not so gentle, as you seem to think. She says she will not pay you the prices you demand. She says you have extortioned her. She says she will report on it to the burgh magistrates.’
    â€˜She will not do that. And she will pay the price. For we ken what it is that she does with her candles.’
    â€˜Do we?’ the boy asked, unsure.
    â€˜Of course we do, you loun. What did shegie to you, to thank you for your pains?’
    â€˜Nothing. I telt you, she wasnae pleased.’ The boy stamped his feet. ‘Three miles through the dark, and the wind was fierce.’ He did not tell the fear, the horror he had felt, to shiver in the great hall of that wifie’s house, where, he was quite certain, there had been a ghost.
    â€˜Cold are ye? Come by the fire.’
    â€˜Nah, I’m a’right.’
    â€˜Did you no hear me, son? Come by the fire.’ The candlemaker left his post to slide a helping hand around his servant’s shoulder. He grasped the boy’s ear, and twisted it sharply. The boy gave a yelp. ‘Whit was that for?’
    â€˜What did shegie ye, ye wee sack of shite?’
    â€˜Nothing. I telt you,’ the prentice boy whimpered, wrenched by his ear to the rim of the pot. ‘For pity, you will hae ma lug off.’
    â€˜Aye, and I might.’ The candlemaker let go of the ear, that was throbbing fiercely, radiant and red, but before the boy could cup it in a cooling hand he felt the candlemaker’s fingers strangled in his hair, forcing him down to the filth of the bath.
    â€˜Mammie!’ He could say no more, for the fumes from the tallow filled his eyes and lungs, and his legs beneath him buckled at the stench. A little of his forelock flopped into the fat, and began to stiffen as his master pulled him up. ‘Why wad ye do that?’ he wailed.
    â€˜For that you are a liar, and an idle sot.’
    â€˜I did not lie. She gied me naught. I telt you. She was cross.’ The boy was snivelling now. Perhaps it was the fumes. He could not help the