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William looked down the canal towards Ardrisaig, a golden-white Spring mist yet to burn off. He checked his fob-watch - 8.20 am. He was expecting a coal shipment to his storehouse this morning. He'd stay around the bridge house this morning, taking care of a little maintenance while he waited, his son could operate the bridge this afternoon. "Aye. It's a fine site" he remarked with a smile at the view.
His thoughts turned to a memory of himself standing in the same place a few years back looking anxiously south to Ardrisaig for the canal's track-boat, Sunbeam, decked out with flowers and banners, pulled by red liveried horsemen, the banks crowded with local VIPs and every person under 90, with a piper at every lock. "Aye and that was the finest sight" remembering Queen Victoria's passage through the canal. "We never looked so well as that day". He sighed looking the opposite way to where the stone pitching had fallen from the bank into the water in the four years since. Mr. Thomson, chief engineer, had shared concerns with him yesterday about the water level recovering from it's usual drought and leaks. He looked further north to see the current work place of the Puddlers and Masons. They had not yet begun their days work - the relentless task of bank maintenance, working from one end of the canal to the other and back again. He could see smoke curling from The Ark near the worksite, the floating house, evidently one of the Puddlers was staying on site.
William Miller scratched his head and went to his tool shed beside his bridge keeper's house. He filled and lit his tobacco pipe, put it to his mouth, picked up the grease bucket and returned to the swing-bridge, to check the hinges. He furrowed his brow looking at the white painted edges of the bridge's stone piles "I see last year's paint job hasn't made it through the winter. Something else to attend to." He wondered vaguely if he could palm it off onto his son. In his younger days on the job, Miller thought that he'd like to up his status and wage and join the ranks of the carpenters, masons and fitters of the canal, "But to be sure, I probably earn more than them now, with £15 from the Canal, the coal business and herself's post office here serving the town. Ach! I don't do badly. At least I've got a house, job-tied and free". He'd been truly shocked 3 years back when the people of nearby Arichonan had been cleared from their fermtoun. He remembered Niall MacMillan Jr. often swimming the Canal to avoid capture by the police after the Clearance riots. A year on the run he was, with many a sympathetic local supporting him. Behind him he heard his daughter Jessie humming in the garden collecting the last of the winter's leeks for making lunch, her homespun wool skirt tucked up above the dew. "Yes, it's a steady job" he murmured to himself, thinking on others less fortunate. He swung the bridge across to the Oakfield Estate and began his day.
Young Seamus Beag McCallum watched the bridge move in the near distance. "Mr. Millers up" he mumbled with relief. Seumas lived at Cairn Bàn and was a Washout Hand a the Glendarroch Distillery on the canal near Ardrisaig. He walked every day to work and he loathed the path beyond Miller's Bridge, especially in the dark of winter. Many's the time his older workmates would chide him about the Ghost Monk who he'd surely meet on that stretch of the canal; about the curse of a yearly drowning - "perhaps it'll be you, wee Seumas!". Mind you, he thought, the other route over the hills is worse to avoid the canal. It's hard going up by Robber's Glen and there's ghost of the murdered Excise man too.
He drew level with the bridge and the working keeper. "Good Morning Mr. Miller"
"Eh? Oh, 'tis yersel' Seumas. And how are you this fine morning?"
"Oh, middling, Mr. Miller." and they fell to sharing the news, Seumas anxious to avoid the canal till the mist had cleared. His eyes widened "Did you hear the news form The Bog?" Miller had not. "Sarah of The Bog was found yester e'en, in 'er 'oose. Dead as anything, they say. Iain Dubh's wife found her. Right shocked she was. Old Sarah had been taking a dram too much, as she's like to do, and she'd fallen onto her fire. Her head was burnt to a cinder.' He said grimacing. 'My mother says she was a witch for sure."
Miller frowned, looked down, sad for the old girl and replied "I wouldn't go saying that, if I was you. She was a little odd yes, but a respected old woman altogether." Seumas felt disapproval in Miller's tone and rounded off their conversation, preferring to brave the Ghost Monk than Miller's frosted words.
Miller watched young Seumas go and noticed a child beyond, dawdling along the bank towards him through the mist. He returned to thoughts of his day. The steamer, The Pioneer would be in from Glasgow soon. The track-boat, The Maid of Perth, would be along within the hour with the transhipped passengers, taking them to othe other end of the Canal to pick up a second steamer for onward journey. He wondered how many of the steerage passengers would be walking the 9 mile tow-path to Crinan to save the fair on the The Maid. He returned to the greasing of the bridge.
He looked up at the sound of shoes on gravel. It was Michael from the Cairn Bàn locks. "Morning William, thought you'd want to know that a cargo of slate has not long left our overnight mooring. Should be with you soon, I take it The Maid'll be on time?"
"Aye, bells's rung, just. I'll hold the slate on your side.' Nodded William, puffing on his pipe. 'Not so much slate as there used to be" he remarked to Michael.
Michael nodded. "Aye. I'd say the days have gone of an Eisdail boat per day. Still, passengers numbers were up last year. " Michael walked on, passing the dawdling boy, who soon came alongside. Miller recognized him as one of the school children from the Bellanoch School, along the canal. He couldn't remember his name. He looked again at his fob-watch "Shouldn't you be in school wee man?"
"Aye" the boy replied guiltily. "So what ye daen here?" There was a shifty silence. "Dodging morning Latin.' The boy confessed 'I'll say I was helpin' m' faither move his fishing boat along the canal"
"Latin is it? I remember that when I was at Bellanoch. Virgil Book One"
"Aye, still the same" replied the boy and shuffled off, a long stalk of grass in hand.
"Hey!' called Miller after him, the boy half turned. "You be sure to tell those girls at school there's to be no selling cans of milk to the Maid's passengers anymore, or Mr. Thompson'll have their parents fined. We've had complaints about bad stomachs from it." The boy sniffed some non-committal reply and continued his dawdle.
Within the hour the passengers from steerage class began to appear round the bend carrying luggage along the tow-path, bairns in tow, mothers keeping them from the canal edge. Miller wondered as he looked at them where they were all heading. Perhaps onto Òban or Fort William for summer work, perhaps completing the 3 day journey to Inverness, some even to Americay. He picked up his wire brush and began to scrub the flaking white paint on the edge stones ready for a new season's coat. "Have her looking fine soon enough" he said to himself, and to the canal, with a smile of pride.
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