by Jess Smith
Before long the little village of Strathyre, which my parents held so dear, came into view. Daddy pulled on to a stretch of grass behind an old ruin. The reason they had such a special affection for this picturesque village was because in the nearby church they were wed as teenagers, before setting off on a year’s honeymoon hitchhiking round Scotland, the only time they shared together before we came along.
My mother loved this area for other reasons also—she had folks who looked for her coming to do their fortunes. Bags of clothes, shoes and the likes that their bairns outgrew were laid aside for her visit, and many a grand rake among the bags did we have. Once I got a braw pair of navy blue shorts. I think they were Girl Guide ones. They were never off me, even when my bum grew to such a size that the cheeks stuck out beneath them, I still squeezed myself inside. You find that, don’t you? There are clothes that hang in a wardrobe never worn, and some that never see the inside of one because you can’t take them off.
Next day Mammy and the older lassies went hawking in Strathyre, while us young ones went to visit Daddy’s mate, Geordie Mackay.
Geordie and his wife Faimie farmed a smallholding at the far end of Kirkton Glen, on the Braes o’ Balquhidder. He and Daddy were boyhood friends. Whenever my father’s family wintered in the area of Glenlyon, both lads went to the same school. The things they got up to when lads do not bear repeating. But I’ll tell you one wee incident just so you can imagine their shenanigans. It goes like this. After giving the teacher a wayn of trouble over several weeks, they were duly brought before the headmaster.
‘You two lads are old enough to know better,’ he warned them. ‘I am setting an example to the rest of the school. At nine on Monday in front of everybody you will be birched!’
Now Geordie had a big round backside, whereas Daddy, poor thing, had a skleff bum, hardly any flesh to take the wallop of a birch.
The two rascals decided they were not deserving of such a severe punishment, so set about a plan to prevent Monday’s martyrdom of their hindquarters. A sloped roof covered the headmaster’s office. A boulder of massive size was rolled by the two lads on to the said roof, with the sole intention of killing the head of the school.
‘It was him or us,’ agreed my Dad.
‘Aye, an’ he had tae go,’ said his mate.
Frozen hands and four hours later they released the deadly weapon. The big round stone careered down the sloped roof and missed by miles the head’s baldy napper! So with the duo dragged to their execution screaming in agony even before a hand was laid on them, the punishment went ahead.
Geordie stopped whingeing and took it like a man. Daddy went to his fate, fainted and wakened up with as big a bum as his pal, except that his took longer to heal than his mate’s.
This, then, was the bond that tied these two friends. And never would my father come this way without a visit to his old pal. Of course the dastardly deed would be relived, and each time the storytellers added another wee bit. If I told you all that was said we would be here all day. Even the school changed venues in the telling.
Geordie and Faimie had only themselves on the wee holding. As they had never been blessed with bairns it meant we got a double helping of being spoiled. The back and front doors of the house on the brae were never closed. Dogs, cats and hens wandered in and out. Sometimes, if Faimie took an afternoon snooze, she would wake to find an old fat hen roosting on her knee. Mammy told me that once Faimie woke up to find two brown eggs deposited on her lap.
And if the sun got too hot, Jack and Jean, the pet goats, came in to share the house as well. They, because of age, had pride of place in the kitchen to eat and rest to their hearts’ content. Aye, never have I seen such royal goats. The length of the beards dangling from their chins told me they might have been a hundred years old and more!
Faimie shooed out the dogs and hens as she welcomed us in. ‘You’re in time for some dinner,’ she said, patting me several times on the head, then added, ‘My, Jessie, what big you’ve grown since last I saw you.’
‘Mammy said it was the amount of scones I ate last time we visited you, Mrs Mackay.’
‘Och, and I suppose you’ll be wanting a bigger dod of butter this time.’ she said.
‘You know me and my buttery scones, Mrs Mackay.’
‘If I didn’t know how much all you lassies meant to your folks I’d ask to keep you for myself.’ She smiled at me with all the love and longing in her face for her own child, and it was at that time I wished there were two of me, so I could leave my double with this kindly lady in the glen. I gave her a cuddle; she wasn’t used to such a show of affection and, blushing, she quickly ushered me out to fetch the men.
I ran round to the barn with an old cock-a-doodle snapping at my heels, and shouted to the two pals that their food was on the table. The men, who were into the guts of an old tractor like two surgeons discussing the innards of a patient, hardly gave me a second glance.
‘Come on, before your food gets cold and this wild bird eats a hole in my gillie’s heel,’ I called, as I failed to keep the cockerel from pecking my feet.
‘It’s Achilles’ heel, you silly lassie,’ said Daddy, glancing briefly at my red-and-brown-feathered attacker.
‘What’s killing you, Daddy?’ I called back.
‘You’ll get it right one of these days,’ laughed Geordie, as he kicked out at the crabbit cockerel, deliberately missing it. ‘That’s what you do to him, Jessie lass, show him who’s boss.’
‘The problem with my family, Geordie,’ joked my Dad, ‘is that they’re all women, with not an ounce of common sense.’
‘Aye, I think my head would be scrambled with eight daughters. It’s a medal waiting on you. Nothing short of a recommendation for you, Charlie, when you arrive at the pearly gates.’
I was far too young to understand the misplaced wisdom of their words, and continued to remind them it was dinner time. While waiting, I observed my father’s friend and a thought came into mind—how much he resembled Santa Claus. Two red-appled cheeks nestling in a fluffy beard, albeit a black one. Yes, Father Christmas in tweeds and a floppy bunnet.
My mother and sisters arrived in time for dinner, filling the wee house to capacity.
‘Why don’t you come back in the spring, Charlie, then I’d get all these extra hands to do the planting and ploughing?’ asked Geordie.
‘Aye, Geordie,’ answered my father, shoving a slice of bread into one of the goats’ mouths that had pushed its way in through the half-open door. ‘I don’t know about the rest of them, but if the school rules changed, oor Jess would be up here in a shot.’
‘Oh, she’d be a grand help to me right enough,’ he said.
‘Aye, but I telt her the real reason why you’d need her help.’
Everybody laughed.
You see, folks, the year before when it was ploughing time, my father said if we were in the glen, Geordie would have me standing on the back of his Davie Broon tractor for one purpose, to be lookie-out for birds’ nests. Daddy told me that Geordie would have me point any golden plovers circling above the area of the tractor. Then he would have me jump off the back, and search among the peaty ground. If a nest was in the path of the plough, he’d stop, push his big hands into the earth and lift the precious bundle out of harm’s way. As long as the eggs were not handled, the mother wouldn’t desert them and would soon be settling on her nest. Geordie said he’d do everything possible not to upset nesting birds, and that’s why I knew I’d feel like a chariot queen, standing on the back of the tractor, one hand on the farmer’s shoulder, the other to my brow, eyes scouring the countryside all around.
This, though, was the coming of autumn, and all the young birds were flown, nests were deserted. I felt robbed in some way that I hadn’t been able to visit with our friends in the spring. Geordie noticed my disappointment and tried to compensate. ‘Why don’t you come and help me tomorrow, Jessie. I’m cutting and stacking. I could do with a hand, that is if it’s all right with mum.
’
‘Can I, Mammy, please?’ I asked breathlessly.
‘Well, all right, but mind now and don’t go wandering away, and do as Mr Mackay tells you.’
I could hardly sleep with excitement, and was up before the owl finished his evening meal. Daddy dropped me off at the crossroads, saying he’d be back at teatime.
Davie Broon the tractor was ticking over when I arrived after a very early breakfast. The old male hen was too busy crowing away good style on the slate roof of the outside cludgie (toilet) to waste time nipping my what-do-you-call-it-heel.
‘Here’s a jeely piece, Jess,’ said Faimie, draping a woolly scarf round my neck and muttering something about ‘an early winter brought on a North wind’. She pushed a bag of sandwiches under my arm, saying I’d get hungry, being a growing bairn.
I thanked her, saying I’d had enough breakfast to keep me going.
‘That’s hard work stooking on the braeside, lassie, you’ll need a lot more.’
I took the jam piece, catching with my tongue juicy rasps dropping from between the slices of bread. ‘Thanks, Mrs Mackay. My, you haven’t spared the raspberry jam. Did you empty the jar between the bread?’
‘Away now, lass, I hear Geordie whistling in the barn, he’ll be waiting on you.’
Before heading off on my day’s harvesting, I just had to give Faimie a cuddle, saying, ‘You’re my favourite farm wifie in a’ the whole world.’
‘Och! I am right important am I not, being as you know that many farmer wives?’
‘Och, I know every one between John o’ Groats and Tushielaw,’ I joked.
She laughed out loud and once again patted my hair flat.
‘Cheerio, Mrs Mackay. Leave the dishes, I’ll do them when I get finished.’
‘Well, I’ll be a fine wife if I leave dishes to such a hard-working lassie, cheerio you.’
To reach the field where Geordie’s harvest work awaited, a short journey on the old tractor made up for missing out on springtime. I steadied myself with one hand on the farmer’s shoulder and pointed to a flock of sand martins. Round and round they flew as if each one was chasing the other’s tail.
‘They are getting ready for the long flight ahead of them,’ said Geordie.
‘Where are they going?’ I asked, ‘I know it’s at the far end of the world, but where is that?’
‘I think it’s a place where the sun is a lot hotter than here,’ he told me, ‘Africa, aye, that’s the place.’
‘That’s a few mile away, Mr Mackay, for teeny birds like that, eh!’
‘Hardy wee craturs for sure, Jessie.’ Geordie went on to say that one day man would copy these streamlined birds and build planes that flew just like them. If he only knew how right he was.
As we bobbed over the stony road, I told him about another bit thing, our family’s new-got pet, Tiny. ‘He’s over young to go out, but when we come back next year I’ll have him up to meet with you and the good wife.’
‘I’ll give him a spin among the rats,’ he said. ‘If a terrier is in him, then he’ll catch no bother. That will please Faimie, she never fails to shack them out of the hay.’
I spent most of the day helping Geordie, him slicing through the hay with a scythe bigger than himself, me stacking it up. When we trundled back towards the house, the erratic martins had gone, leaving the sky empty of summer birds. I wondered how many would make the journeys, there and back. I blew a kiss towards the sky, silently followed by a prayer to the angels, to ‘please keep them safe from harm’s way’.
Waving cheerio to Geordie and Faimie, I skipped off down the road towards the crossroads where Daddy would pick me up, avoiding one last attempt by the crabbit old cockerel to snip my heel.
As I passed the graveyard I noticed a woman reading an inscription on a tombstone.
‘Hello, have you a friend lies among the dead folk in there?’ I called out to her.
The woman laughed at my question, then came over to where I was and said: ‘No, I was passing by and came in to see the resting place of the famous Rob Roy Macgregor.’
‘Oh, you have, have you. I didn’t know him, but some folks say he was a bad man and others say he was a hero from these parts,’ I said.
‘Are you from travelling hantel?’ she asked.
‘Aye, that I am, from Perthshire travellers.’ I went on to tell her my family surnames. She said she’d certainly heard of us, but so far I was the first Riley she’d met.
‘Have you a half hour to spare, lassie?’ she asked. ‘Like yourself I’m a traveller, and this tale I have I’ll only pass it on to my own kind.’
I looked down to the spot where my father said he’d collect me. There was no sign of him, so I sat at the kirkyard wall with the stranger and listened to a tale of magic and wonder. I now have pleasure in sharing it with you today.
18
THE BABYSITTER
Bridget O’Connell, an only child of Irish immigrants, was brought into the world in a bow-camp at a wood beneath the Drum of Clash-more, in the Trossachs. She was a solitary lass, who spent most of her youth wandering among the trees of oak and birch dreaming of a world where fairies lived, and some say she could be heard talking to the wind as it rustled through the autumn leaves of golden brown.
One night, while filled with fever, she dreamt a strange dream. Rob Roy, the legendary hero from the pen of Walter Scott, came to Bridget. He told her in a strange cryptic verse ‘A seventh son o’ a seventh son would come from her seed and save his soul.’ She fretted over the dream and found sleep hard to come by for many a night after it. What could she have to do with such a thing? For sure, she was only a virgin lass of sixteen-years-old, who so far had neither the eye nor a wink from any lad.
This, though, was a change in the making, because Duncan (Pirie) Williamson, a handsome young Highlander who was fee-ed at a nearby farm, fell head over heels for the whimsical lass, and within the year they were wed.
They lived a healthy life and gave the world eight sons and three daughters, who all lived in and around the Trossachs, even after most married and had bairns of their own. Farmers in the area had plenty work and were more than glad to see the hardy clan of Duncan and Bridget when tatties needed lifting, and harvesting time came.
Bridget’s family were raised on tales of fairies and little folk, and they were more than used to their mother ranting on about Rob Roy. But out of respect to her status, they never openly mocked or made fun of her fanciful tales of the wee folks, whom she maintained looked after them all.
She would say to them, ‘Now mind and keep the place clean and not be upsetting the fairies,’ then add, ‘They’ll watch out for you if you are mindful of them’.
Although fairies never age, folks do, and one night Duncan kissed his lass’s cheek for the last time and slipped over to the other side. Bridget put on mourning clothes and gave her time to watching the wee ones, whilst the family worked hard on the nearby farms.
The old woman (for now she was the age of seventy-five) had plenty grandbairns to keep her eye on, and she loved them all, especially wee Robbie, her second youngest son’s bairn.
‘Have you ever seen such a pair of bonnie blue eyes on any other bairn?’ she would ask visitors, cupping his little face lovingly with her hands, then adding, ‘And look at this head of yellow curls.’ This would be followed by, ‘But deary me, he’s into everything. I need eyes in the back of my head to watch this bit bairn, and him not three yet.’
Rob Roy and the fairies were put to the back of her mind as her role became more demanding. Still, every so often, she would glance into the rustling trees as if a whisper from within the silence met her ears. Little did she imagine that with each passing day fate was laying a path, a way that she had no control over, a path she had to follow!
One peaceful night, while her family slept soundly in their tents, the stranger who haunted her dreams all those years ago came back and this time he told her:
On the moss-carpeted ground
&n
bsp; In the wood at loch Ard,
A man o’ the cloth lies deed!
Plunged a dirk tae his heart,
By my very own hand,
For no more than twa bawbees.
Auld Nick waits tae tak ma soul
Held in a secret place,
By the fairies o’ the Deil’s waterfall,
And only the son o’ the seventh son
Can tak awa this disgrace.
On waking the next morning, she ran breathlessly round each of her children, telling them of her dream. The family told her she had to stop all this Rob Roy nonsense, or else she’d go moich.
‘Anyway, he didn’t hail from these parts,’ said her eldest son, ‘he came from over Balquhidder way, and some say Dochart saw his likes, but never here among the Trossachs, so stop this, Mother, and do it now!’
‘Och, you’re wrong,’ she said in her defence. ‘I mind the day I met a tramp who come from the west, a learned gentlemaun he was. He told me Rob went all over the place, and was seen as far away as Ayrshire. He also told me that Rob had even been chased by Redcoats out of Sutherland, not that far from where your dear father was born!’
She then proudly added that the learned tramp laughed at her when she asked if he’d been here in the Trossachs. ‘Why, wife, this is Rob Roy country, just down the road a bit is the auld “Clachan of Aberfoyle” with Jean Macalpine’s Inn. They say Rob Roy frequented the place oftentimes.’
Bridget reminded the tramp that she was a tinker woman, and took little to do with folks round about. ‘I never went to school neither,’ she added.
‘So there you have it, family, I knew fine Rob Roy was as real as the Menteith Hills!’
‘Och aye, Mother, you believe that if it makes you happy, but we think it’s the Irish in you, all those stories told by your folks about Leprechauns.’
This brought a hearty burst of laughter amongst her brood. She sat down at the fire and wrapped her old shawl round thin shoulders. Taking a clay pipe from her apron and lighting it, she said, ‘You can think what you want, but I know last night’s dream was so life-like I could have wiped the sweat from Rob’s brow if I’d a mind. Now away and start your day’s work, I’ve the fire to stoke.’