The Loud Halo

by Lillian Beckwith

  ‘Ach, but there’s no sense in this weather, no sense at all,’ grumbled Morag as we got behind the cows and started them moving towards the fence. ‘Me feets gets that cold, though I have on three pairs of stockings under them an’ it hurts to take off my boots. I’m wishin’ sometimes I could be goin’ to bed in them.’

  ‘You should put cow dung mixed with wee bitty straw in your boots first.’ advised Tearlaich. ‘Aye, aye, aye, cow dung. That’s what I said, cow dung.’ Tearlaich was always known as ‘Tearlaich-a-Tri’ because of his habit of repeating a thing three times before he could be sure he had said it.

  ‘Is that what you use yourself?’ Morag asked him with a show of surprise.

  ‘Aye, I do, I do, I do,’ he replied. ‘An’ I’m no’ after feelin’ the cold a wee bitty, not a wee bit, I say.’

  ‘I wouldn’t fancy washing your socks,’ I murmured.

  ‘Socks? You dunna’ need socks at all, at all; no, not at all.’

  ‘Then surely your feets must be awful tender,’ suggested Morag.

  Indignantly Tearlaich turned on her and proceeded to instruct her in the acquiring of a pair of warm and comfortable feet. I gave scant attention to their conversation, being engrossed in tracing the pattern of shrew prints that interlaced one another on the snow like the strands of a necklace. The three cows were lumbering along in front of us, their great bellies bumping from time to time and their protesting moos mingling wish the grumbling of the snow as it packed down beneath their hooves.

  Suddenly I became conscious of a thick sucking splash just in front of us and of Tearlaich shouting in Gaelic. I looked up just in time to see the hind-quarters of Morag’s cow disappearing into a bog. Panic-stricken I ran forward with the others, urging the cow to extricate herself before she sank deeper. The beast’s two front feet were still on ground that seemed firm enough but as we tried to drive her forward by slaps and prods, by pulls on her horns and by continuous malediction from Tearlaich her hind-quarters only sank deeper and deeper. We bared our arms and plunged them into the bog, trying to grasp a leg and aid her in her struggles but despite our efforts the cow only seemed to settle herself until she was in the ludicrous position of sitting upright with her forelegs stretched out in front of her, like a begging dog.

  ‘I doubt we’re only makin’ things worse,’ panted Morag. ‘We’d best go an’ get help.’

  We paused dejectedly for a moment, assessing the situation. It looked as if it should have been easy enough to extricate the beast when she already had two feet on firm ground but the bog was a narrow hole and by now her hind-quarters were deeply embedded. Morag, looking white and strained, swept the hair from her eyes with a peaty arm. The fight would not last much longer and by the time we got help from the village the cow might have lost the will to live.

  ‘You and Miss Peckwitt had best take your own cows home,’ Morag advised in desperation. ‘You can get help then, while I stay here with my beast.’ Tearlaich said he would put his beast ‘through the gate just’, but I raced Bonny home in record time. However by the time I had made my first plea for help Tearlaich had told Morag’s deaf brother Ruari who had simply raised his voice and acquainted the whole village with the news. When I got back to the moor there were half a dozen men with ropes and boards in attendance round the cow, who had become distinctly more apathetic than she had been when I left. With much excited Gaelic argument and much impedance from excited dogs, a rope was tied to the cow’s horns and boards were pushed down into the bog to try and give her a firm footing. But by now the cow had lost the will to struggle and the position began to look hopeless.

  ‘Give her a dose of whisky,’ suggested Ian. ‘I have some here in my pocket.’

  ‘Here, no,’ said Murdoch. ‘I’ll drink that myself. Wait till you get the beast out before you give her the whisky and make sure it won’t be wasted.’

  ‘Ach, give her some anyway,’ insisted Ian, and a generous dose was poured down the cow’s throat. This was followed by several more fruitless attempts to heave her out, but the struggle became increasingly difficult as what had at first been firm ground softened under the continuous treading and slithering of many feet. Even the boards which had been placed under the cow’s front hooves had become slimy so that they now provided only a treacherous foothold. The men were becoming tired.

  ‘I doubt we’ll not get her out,’ said Morag with weary despair.

  ‘She has such small hooves for the size of her, that’s what’s the trouble,’ said Murdoch. ‘If she had a good big foot that wouldn’t cut into the ground we maybe might get her out.’

  There was a general shaking of heads in abandonment of the cow’s prospects, and yet I knew they would not leave her while there was the remotest chance of her survival. I turned to see Johnny Comic, who must have been ceilidhing in the village and who now stood forlornly among the group of helpers. He suddenly looked about him, lumbered over to a small hillock and sat down. Then he proceeded to take off his very large boots. I was still staring at him perplexedly when he got up and walked through the snow towards the cow, holding out his boots.

  ‘Here,’ he told the men, ‘put my boots on the poor creature’s feets.’

  Murdoch stared at him, bereft of speech for a moment, and Johnny, thinking they were going to refuse, bent down and struggled the cow’s front hooves into each of his boots. ‘Give her a pull now,’ he instructed and derisive but obedient the men pulled. There seemed to be a slight sound from the bog. Immediately everyone became excited. ‘Take off your own boots, Murdoch, you old bodach, you have the biggest feets here. See an’ give us your boots an’ we’ll try will we get her out with them.’ Almost bodily they carried the old man over to the hillock and took off his boots and then, returning to the cow, they plunged their arms into the bog once more and lifted. The bog seemed to release its hold a little more and the cow, feeling the firmness of Johnny’s boots on her front hooves, heaved her body again. Everyone became cautiously jubilant. ‘Be ready with them boots!’ shouted someone. ‘When, we give her another heave see can you get them on to her feets.’ They heaved altogether, the cow responded and there was a shout of triumph as her hind-quarters suddenly came up out of the bog. Murdoch’s boots were jammed on her hind hooves, and with boots on all four feet she was pulled and pushed to firm ground.

  ‘Ach, but she’s in a pretty way,’ said Ian, as the cow swayed from side to side and looked as though she would fall back into the bog. ‘Get her a wee bit further away and give her another dose of whisky, that’ll warm her,’ he instructed. With men on either side of her to prevent her falling over the cow was persuaded slowly forward. ‘Now, pour this down her throat,’ said Ian. I think it was Erchy who seized the bottle and, making a pouch of the cow’s mouth, poured down the rest of the spirit.

  ‘By God!’ he said to Morag and me as we rubbed the cow with handfuls of the hay someone had brought, ‘that was a damty queer place for a cow to be. How did she get there?’

  There followed a great deal of explanation until there came a shout from Murdoch who was still sitting on the hillock, trying to cradle first one foot and then the other in order to keep it warm. Johnny Comic seemed hardly to notice the loss of his boots.

  ‘How am I goin’ to get home without gettin’ my death of cold?’ demanded Murdoch irately. ‘Somebody had best go and get my Sunday boots and bring them to me.’

  ‘Tearlaich will go, an’ he’ll till them with dung for you first,’ returned Morag, laughing now with relief.

  ‘Here, no!’ expostulated Murdoch. ‘They’ll not let me into the house.’

  ‘You’d best get that beast movin’,’ Ian told us, seeing the cow shivering with cold and fright. ‘Miss Peckwitt, give the cow a wind to see will it start her off,’ he commanded me.

  ‘A wind?’ I repeated stupidly.

  ‘Aye, indeed so.’ He leaped over the bog and pushing me aside seized the cow’s tail which he began to crank as though it were the starting handle of a car. Whether it w
as the maltreatment of her tail or a sudden bellow from Tearlaicb’s cow on the other side of the fence that provided the impetus I do not know but the beast gave an answering bellow, lunged forward and started to lumber erratically away from us.

  ‘By God, she’s drunk! I must have given the beast too much whisky,’ shouted Erchy with a jubilation that was tempered by horror.

  ‘By God, but she has on my boots!’ shouted Murdoch.

  ‘Take them from the beast before they’re lost to me.’ But no one heeded him for the relief of tension had brought laughter and shrill comments and also an awareness of our cold and tired bodies.

  If a stranger had seen our procession that night as it wound its way over the still moors that were silvered with moonlight and in the wake of a drunken cow wearing tackety boots, with one bootless old man being carried ‘piggy back’ by big Ian and the other trudging in his stockinged feet through the snow, he surely must have thought we were engaged in some pagan ritual. As Erchy put it, ‘it’s a damty good thing this didn’t happen in the summer when there’s folks about or they’d have said we was as mad as I don’t know what.’

  The snow lasted for nearly three weeks, and every day the sun shone brilliantly during the brief hours of daylight and then sank in an extravagant splendour of gold and crimson that rippled and pulsed across the sky.

  ‘How about a trip in Hector’s boat tomorrow?’ Erchy asked me one day as I was breaking the ice that formed each night on the water butts.

  ‘I’d love to,’ I said with alacrity.

  ‘There’s a message come through to the Post Office that the folks over at the Glen is gettin’ short of food an’ they canna’ get to them by road yet. Nelly Elly was askin’ would Hector take some there tomorrow.’

  The snow had made it impossible to use any sort of vehicle even on the Bruach road and so Hector and Erchy and Duncan, the postmistress’s son, were well loaded with parcels of every shape and size when they passed the cottage on their way down to the boat. Morag and Behag, grumbling good-naturedly, shuffled behind them carrying their own offerings of home-baked oatcakes and scones in a sack thrown over the shoulder and held there with one hand. The other hand shielded their eyes from the sparkling brightness of the snow. I plodded after them, resting my eyes from the brilliance of the land by looking out to sea where Ealasaid, Hector’s new beat, lay serenely at her moorings, at this distance looking like an ivory carving set in a polished sea. On closer inspection the effect was spoiled by the girdle of old motor-tyres with which she was draped, for though boats are ever more elaborately equipped and piers are ever more elaborately designed the fishermen still raid the shores and village dumps for old motor-tyres to prevent the two from becoming too familiar.

  It was bitterly cold up in the bow of the beat where I chose to stand, but had I gone aft I should have been forced to breathe the fumes from the fo’ c’sle fire which Morag was already lighting. Erchy noticed my teeth chattering.

  ‘I don’t know why you don’t go in there with Behag and Morag,’ he chided me. ‘You’ll be after gettin’ perished with the cold out here.’

  I indicated my binoculars. ‘I want to keep a watch out for the deer,’ I explained. ‘This weather will have driven them down to the shore, don’t you think?’

  ‘Aye,’ agreed Erchy morosely. ‘But what good is it goin’ to do you to see the deer, anyway?’

  ‘I’m just interested,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll give you a shout if I see them.’ he promised. ‘Now for God’s sake, woman, go down into the fo’ c’sle before you freeze to death in front of my eyes.’

  The fo’c’sle was damp and odorous and untidily snug, the bunks full of a jumble of tarpaulins and sails and ropes, while two or three elegant whisky glasses co-existed happily with a collection of enamel cups and plates. Morag had the folding table erected so that she and Behag could sort through the more homely women’s magazines which comprise the library of so many Scottish fishing boats. The table itself had intrigued me from the first time I saw it, for though it was made of only two rough and many-knotholed boards, six of the best-placed knotholes had been knocked out to provide the crew with some of the most stable egg-cups ever devised.

  ‘Here’s your deer!’ shouted Erchy appearing momentarily in the entrance and I scrambled up on deck to see a herd of deer, apprehensive and poised for night yet reluctant to leave the kelp on which they had been feeding.

  ‘I can count three stags and twelve hinds,’ I turned ecstatically to Erchy. ‘How many can you see, Erchy?’

  He flicked an unenthusiastic glance towards the shore and then huddled back into the wheelhouse with Hector.

  ‘Erchy!’ I reproached him. ‘Aren’t you interested in the deer?’

  ‘The only deer I’m interested in just now is piping hot on a plate,’ he retorted with a nod of dismissal.

  I returned to the fo’ c’sle and my two still-engrossed companions and after about twenty minutes we heard the engine note of the beat change as she was put out of gear.

  ‘We must be there,’ said Morag, so we collected our parcels and went up on deck. There was a swirling of water as the engine stopped and a dinghy, rowed with quick, excited strokes, came out to meet us. There was an exchange of Gaelic as we and the parcels were unloaded into the dinghy but though they were obviously glad to see us their greetings were at first a little strained. It was obvious that the family were much ashamed of having to admit that they had not laid in sufficient stocks of food to tide them over only three weeks’ isolation. ‘We’ve been spoiled with these vans comin’,’ they confessed after a glass or two of whisky from a bottle produced by Erchy had lessened the slight tension. ‘We just let ourselves get slack but we’ll see and not let it happen again.’

  It developed into a very convivial ceilidh (whisky was the only form of sustenance our friends had not run short of) and by the time we came out again into the snow it was dark. I was faintly puzzled when I looked up at the full moon to discover that not only had it grown a waist but that it also seemed to have sprouted fuzzy whiskers. I realise with a fleeting sense of shame that the whisky had made me light-headed. Morag and Behag too showed signs of unusual elation and as soon as she had clambered aboard Morag went to lie down on one of the bunks, complaining of a ‘frosted stomach’. I too eased myself down on to an unyielding lump of tarpaulin and stared with great contentment through half-shut eyes at that strangely shaped moon which was now wearing the porthole as a halo. The engine of the boat started; there was a rattle of chain as the anchor came aboard; ‘goodbyes’ were shouted. Ealasaid dipped gently as she was brought round and with the quickening of the engine the water thumped and swished against the stemhead. The fo’ c’sle was full of misty light and only an occasional sniff from Behag broke the steady pulsing of the engine and its accompanying clatter of enamel plates. It was with regret that I heard the home mooring being picked up and the engine switched off.

  ‘I’m feelin’ a change in the weather tonight,’ said Erchy as we walked up from the shore.

  ‘That’s not what the forecasters are saying on the wireless.’

  I told him. ‘They said only this morning that there was no sign of a break yet.’

  ‘Ach, I don’t care what the forecasters is sayin’,’ Erchy maintained. ‘I can feel it kind of different an’ your feelin’s is a lot better than forecasts.’

  ‘Aye,’ agreed Hector soberly, ‘an’ tsey feel a lot furszer ahead.’

  Two mornings later I awoke feeling that there was indeed a change. The light in my bedroom was sad and grey and there was the old familiar dripping of rain. Pulling back the curtains I saw that in the night the thaw had come leaving the moors as full of tracks as an upturned palm while the hills wept snowy tears. It rained relentlessly the whole of that day and the next day, which was a Sunday, the rain was accompanied by a truculent wind which came at us in great rushes that nearly caught us off balance as we trudged the sodden ground. Work done, I stayed snug in my cottage with a Howa
rd Spring and a box of marshmallows for company and saw without contrition the good folk of the village trailing drably through the semi-dusk to church.

  ‘I came to bring you this skart,’ said Morag on Monday morning. ‘Hector shot it on Saturday so you’ll be able to cook it tomorrow.’

  I thanked her and, taking the bird from her, hung it behind the kitchen door.

  ‘An’ do you know who lowered himself to come to our church last night?’ she demanded with scarcely concealed amusement.