Features / Ken Speckle Papers: a tangle with the Lords of Norway
THE cache of the Rev. Ken Speckle’s papers, discovered earlier this year in ‘Da Pechts Hoose’ at Wadbister, Bressay, has now been thoroughly dried out on the radiator in Dr Shilpitt’s study, and we are pleased to publish a further extract from these fascinating documents.
I was astonished last evening, and not a little perturbed, when I overheard a conversation betwixt Miss Sally Geo, my housekeeper, and Lowrie Stane, the Kirkabister whelk-herder who had arrived with the post from Sharniecrick and was enjoying a refreshment in Sally’s pantry.
“Duslekly herd,” quoth he, “At da Reverend’s gotten a braa puckle o’ siller fae Mestir McSwimmy, da Scotch meenister, fir tellin him whit’s gyaanonat da toon hoose. Doctor Garlick tinks he’s chusta paid spy an he’s maddas hellat dey didna hire him instead.”
That my intemperate neighbour and erstwhile lodger and blackmailer, Dr Witney Garlick, should be privy to such confidential information was particularly unsettling, for I had given my word to Mr Bigally, Her Ladyship’s sponsor for the Whig interest, and to Mr McMerkiaverly, her man of politickal business, that no inkling of the true nature of my recent visits to the Sharniecrick Tollbooth should ever be bruited abroad. I was therefore careful to key the door of my study when I retired thither to compose my latest epistle to Mr McSwimmy of the Scotch Party, and to make this wet copy of the same for retention in my personal archives:
Unto the Hon. Jock McSwimmy, Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland, at Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh.
Esteemed Sir,
Prior to your forthcoming visit in state to these sceptic isles of Zetland, the following intelligences may be of interest, in view of the expressed intention of Countess Coupkecks of Pinkrivlin, the soi-disant Leader of the Zetland Commissioners of Supply, graciously to grant you an audience.
Her Ladyship has been much occupied of late in concluding a commercial treaty with the Lords of Norway, in particular with Herr Rundupp of Det Krafti Norsk Tangmonopol, anent a lease of the lands of Sillie Ness, in the parish of Skootstir, hard by the treacle bending vats of the British Peat Oil Company on Caldbucket Point. As Mr McMerkiaverly may have told you, there have been several gentlemen adventurers involved in financial speculations concerning the vast quantities of sea ware that our winter (and, indeed, summer) storms cast upon the coast of Zetland. When burnt in piles along the seashore this tang, or waar, produces kelp, a substance that can easily be freighted south for sale, at a considerable profit, to soapworks, paint manufactories and gunpowder mills upon the continent of Scotland.
It is Herr Rundupp’s admirable intention to put this trade upon a more rational and secure footing by employing those idlers and paupers, who formerly piled up gale-driven wrack and spread it on their fields as manure, instead to wade into the shallows and cut it with scythes from the vast forest of kelp plants that grows there, most particularly in and around the Hub of Skootstir. The waar thus acquired would be fresher, more voluminous and more productive, and therefore fetch a higher price when burned.
Her Ladyship was instantly enraptured by this project and, brushing aside objections from fellow commissioners, such as Doctor Hermitage and Sir Bobby Fraemenstrie, instructed Comptroller-General Meggie immediately to conclude a bargain with Det Krafti Norsk Tangmonopol for the paltry sum Herr Rundup had proposed, before considering any other bidders (such as Da Pippels Soap Bubble Co. or the consortium trading as Wirain Waar Firwizaa).
When severals of the commissioners voiced their opposition to this procedure and demanded that the Municipal Underlings submit their proposals to a vote in a publick session at the Toon Hoose, I heard Comptroller-General Meggie reply, with some ire: “I have a wonderful team and how dare you characterise them as shambolic, fawning incompetents when they are so teamly wonderful and teamfully produce daily such wonderteamie things for us to behold!” To which Mr Risible, the Municipal Overling and Notary Private, added, menacingly: “It would seem that the elected commissioners have a sense of entitlement to which they are not entitled.”
Countess Coupkecks then explained to her critics that it was a more complicated matter than they imagined: “We have to ask the authorities what to do in such cases,” she said. “It’s not for the likes of me to decide what is best for the public weal. That’s why I always ask Comptroller Meggie to tell me what to say.”
Her Ladyship added: “We must not be ungrateful. It was very kind of dear Mr Rundupp to offer us anything at all for this miserable patch of waste ground.”
When it emerged that the rent of the subjects at Skootstir would be based, not upon the tonnage of kelp that Det Krafti Norsk Tangmonopol manufactured and exported, but merely on the length of the shoreline to be worked, there was uproar in the publick prints, with Dr. Hermitage in particular denouncing his superior in impertinent and, indeed, incandescent language. Others, such as Lady Anna Stokfisk-Gödelåde, joined in the chorus of complaint and it seems that not even the recent publication of a charmingly composed aquatint of Lady Pinkrivlin, radiant in the august company of Sir Allastir Curmudgeon and St Beatrix the Silent of the Holy Rood, can distract the multitude from the alleged scandal. Sales of the print have been lamentably meagre.
I would therefore respectfully counsel that, in your publick remarks when you land at Sharniecrick later this month, on your peregrination of His Majesty the King’s North British Dominions, you do not allude to this affair, as it would only encourage Her Ladyship’s detractors.
I remain, Dear Sir, with the greatest fealty and respect,
Your Obedient Servant,
Kenneth Speckle B.D. Edin. (failed)¹
[1] The Rev. Kenneth Speckle, it may be remembered, was banished to the remote charge of Stobister and Pendicles in 1785 after a misunderstanding concerning the communion wine accounts of a parish in Fife. It had previously been thought that Speckle did not survive the poverty and distress that so afflicted him in the early 1820s, but the latest find of his papers shows that he not only survived but prospered.
Editor’s note: It is taking considerable effort and time to decipher this new bundle of papers, not only because they are much stained with pipe tobacco and claret, but also because they are written on both sides of the paper and the ink has run badly. However, our dedicated team of palaeographers will persist in their task and we hope to bring you more fruits of their labours very soon.
The collected Ken Speckle Papers is published in book form here.
