The Hills is Lonely

by Lillian Beckwith

  Suddenly from the distance there came a loud shouting and, glancing uneasily over my shoulder, I saw with horror that a distracted bull or cow was careering madly along the road in my direction. It ran erratically, weaving from side to side, and making wild sweeps with its enormous horns at two furiously snapping sheep dogs which raced on either side. Some way behind the cow but obviously in pursuit tore a frantically gesticulating figure whose shouting had attracted my attention. As the figure perceived me the shouting and gesticulating were intensified.

  For one awful moment I was transfixed with fear but the realisation that I was being warned to run for my life galvanised me into action. I do not believe it would be any exaggeration to say that in spite of my heavy gumboots I was across the road in one bound and into the wood, and in another I was up in the top of the most dependable-looking hazel tree I could see. Certainly I could recollect afterwards a sensation of flying more than of climbing, and I felt I might more reasonably claim to be an ex-mate of Tarzan than an ex-school-marm. Quaking with fear, I clung to my perch while the noise of hooves and the incessant altercation of the dogs drew nearer, passed, and faded into the distance. I was shakily descending the tree when a voice assailed me in voluble Gaelic and I espied the elderly pursuer of the cow advancing, red-faced and truculent towards me. My boots touched earth, but so formidable was the old man’s countenance that I was tempted to repeat the climb. Without preamble he began to address me eloquently and though he spoke in Gaelic I had the uncomfortable feeling that much of the eloquence was vituperative.

  ‘Please say what you have to say in English.’ I told him with as much hauteur as I could command.

  At once he became confused and apologetic.

  ‘Ah, my, my, you have no Gaelic is it? Indeed and I’m after mistakin’ you for one hereabouts. Ach, but you’ve no Gaelic.’ He looked at me pityingly.

  ‘What were you saying to me then?’ I asked.

  ‘I was just sayin’ if only you would have stood still in front of the cow and waved your arms at her she’d have taken fright at you and would have turned back likely.’

  I pondered the compliment carefully.

  ‘Now d’ you see,’ he continued, his voice full of pathos. ‘I’ll never turn her before she gets home, and it’s fourteen miles the day already I’ve driven the beast.’

  I condoled with him suitably, but had to admit that I was afraid the cow might have tossed me if I had stayed within reach. My excuse seemed to puzzle him for he blinked thoughtfully for a few seconds.

  ‘I don’t believe she would have,’ he said seriously, ‘but even supposin’ she had tossed you there would have been no malice in it—no malice at all. She’s not a cross cow by rights.’

  I was wondering if it felt any different to be tossed by an unmalicious cow than by a malicious one when the old man spoke again.

  ‘What a pity you had not the Gaelic,’ he said mournfully. ‘I could just as well have shouted to you in English, and then maybe I wouldn’t have had all this trouble for nothin’.’

  We commiserated with each other at some length on our joint misfortunes before he could bring himself to continue his forlorn trek homeward.

  ‘What were you up the tree for?’ he rounded on me just as I was hoping I was rid of him and, strange as it may seem, I could not think on the spur of the moment of a plausible reason why a middle-aged woman should be up in the top of a tree, for I was not willing to confess the full extent of my cowardice. Providentially the man went on to answer his own question.

  ‘Lookin’ for nuts were you?’

  I grasped at the straw and nodded affirmation.

  ‘Ach!’ he burst out derisively, ‘there’ll be no nuts there till September or after.’

  At my affectation of surprise he permitted himself a short bark of laughter. ‘No, no,’ he repeated. ‘Not till September, so you’ve started climbin’ a few months too soon.’

  Pleased with his joke he plodded off down the road in the wake of the recalcitrant cow.

  Deciding that it was time for me to go in search of Morag, I returned to the sale yard and there found my landlady. She was in high spirits, her stirk having sold at a good price.

  ‘Didn’t you say something about there being sheepdog trials here today after the sale?’ I asked.

  ‘So there was to be,’ replied Morag, ‘but they tell me they’ve been cancelled.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘All I heard was that the sheep had broke out of the pen and they’d been chasin’ the dogs all over the place. They must have been a wild lot of sheep that, and the poor dogs have had an awful time with them.’

  There was very little activity at the sale yard by now: most of the beasts had been disposed of and the knots of arguing men—an inevitable occurrence whenever Gaels fraternise—were already beginning to move off. I noticed the butcher, an immense man, leading a tiny calf by a tiny piece of rope. He reminded me of a portly matron airing her Pekingese.

  Morag was eager to hurry me off to the hotel for lunch and there we ate our meal in the kitchen with the cook who was a good friend of hers. The hospitality of the Islanders is proverbial, and it is, or seems to be, accepted that their hospitality extends beyond their own larders to those of their employers, so the excellent meal cost us nothing.

  As we sat sipping our after-lunch cups of tea, the cook rose and opened a door which gave on to a small passage. Through this passage was the bar and it was possible both to see and hear the barman serving drinks to the assembled crowd. The cook considered this excellent entertainment and assuring us that it was ‘as good as a concert’, she settled herself in a chair placed as near the door as possible.

  Most of the male population of Bruach were present in the bar along with many others I did not know and all were in good trim; full of beer and whisky and, to begin with, bonhomie. Gradually as more whisky was consumed the voices became first argumentative and then threatening. One or two were heard soothing or cajoling, while every now and then the barman himself intervened on a note of warning. In the midst of a particularly noisy dispute the outside door of the bar was flung violently open and for a moment every voice was hushed. Then the clamour broke out afresh as the newcomer was recognised. But this time it sounded to be congratulatory. From my position I could not see who had entered, but the cook whispered excitedly:

  ‘My, my, if yon isn’t Hamish Mor himself.’

  ‘It is so?’ gushed Morag ecstatically.

  ‘It is so,’ reiterated the cook.

  Edging forward I saw that the cause of all the acclamation was a tall well-made man with fiery red hair peeping from under his cloth cap. Like a conquering hero he strode up to the bar counter while on all sides people pressed about him effusively, shaking his hand vigorously, and interspersing their salutations with commands to the barman to ply the newcomer with drinks. Only an odd one or two of the customers, seeming to find their own drinks suddenly distasteful, slunk towards the door and sliding round it disappeared unobtrusively. Meanwhile Hamish Mor, utterly unperturbed, was downing drinks as fast as his friends could pay for them. I asked Morag why he should be so popular.

  ‘Ach, you’ll no be knowin’ him,’ she told me. ‘He’s no from the village at all.’ Her tone was like a rebuff.

  ‘They’re making a great fuss of him,’ I observed.

  ‘Aye indeed, and so they might, for a better man never lived,’ breathed the cook reverently.

  ‘Do they always treat him like this?’ I persisted,

  ‘No,’ replied Morag guardedly.

  ‘Then why today?’ I asked. ‘Is it his birthday or has he won a medal or something?’

  Morag sighed. ‘No,’ she said, ‘but today he’s just come out of prison.’

  ‘Prison?’ I echoed incredulously.

  ‘Aye. prison,’ she confirmed.

  ‘What was he convicted of?’ I asked.

  ‘Assault,’ interposed the cook shortly.

  ‘Assault? Who did he assault?’r />
  ‘He threw the barman out of the window there,’ the cook replied with a languid gesture towards the bar.

  ‘Which barman?’

  ‘Why, the one that you see there now,’ said the cook with a touch of impatience.

  I ventured a further peep round the door. The barman appeared to me to be a dissolute-looking fellow of the type that makes a woman’s flesh creep and a man’s fists tingle, but even so the behaviour of the crowd seemed too cruel. I watched carefully as with impassive countenance he served drink after drink to his assaulter, every drink paid for by the admiring company, who continued to jostle one another for the privilege of patting Hamish Mor on the back and wishing him, rather pointedly: ‘Better luck next time!’

  ‘Sure Hamish was for killin’ that barman, was he not Morag?’ said the cook with a tinge of regret in her voice.

  ‘I suppose that is why the wretches are wishing him better luck next time,’ I retorted drily.

  ‘Aye, I’m thinkin’ Hamish will be killin’ that barman one of these days yet,’ asseverated Morag and added hurriedly, ‘that is if the Lord spares him.’

  The cook and Morag continued to discuss Hamish and his perfections while I listened with one ear to their gossip and with the other to the tragi-comedy of the bar.

  ‘D’you mind that summer Hamish signed the pledge?’ asked the cook with a chuckle.

  ‘Aye, I mind fine,’ replied Morag.

  ‘Three days he kept off the whisky,’ said the cook reminiscently.

  ‘Three days? Three weeks it was more like,’ corrected Morag.

  ‘Three days it was,’ maintained the cook stoutly.

  ‘What happened then?’ I interposed.

  ‘Why, Hamish was lyin’ in his bed that night when he hears the thrush singin’ outside. “Drink well, Hamish, drink well, Hamish,” says the thrush, “drink all the time.” ’

  The two women laughed together.

  ‘And bless me,’ went on the cook, ‘but Hamish jumps up. “To Hell with the missionary!” says he. “When the birds in the trees are tellin’ a man to drink it canna’ be wrong.” So he comes here—two o’clock in the mornin’ it was—and he knocks us up and tells us what he’ll do to us if he doesn’t get a bottle or two of whisky there and then.’ The cook lifted the corner of her apron to wipe the tears of laughter from her eyes.

  Hamish’s message seemed to me to be an odd interpretation of the call of the thrush, but then I remembered that the bird, unlike myself, would be fortunate enough to have the Gaelic.

  ‘D’you mind that time the artist told Hamish he wanted to paint him?’ asked Morag of the cook.

  ‘No, I don’t mind that at all,’ replied the other. ‘Indeed I never heard of that.’

  ‘He was only a poor wee soul,’ said Morag; ‘and Hamish looked down at him. “Wee mannie,” says he, “if you dare to lay a brush on me I’ll kick the pants off you.” ’

  The sound of our laughter attracted the attention of the bar customers. Quickly the cook pushed the door. ‘We’ll just keep it shut while we finish our strupak,’ she said, ‘or they’ll be wantin’ in here with their drink.’

  When the door was opened again, Hamish had left and with him the merriest of the drinkers. The atmosphere now was decidedly less convivial. Of the remaining occupants of the bar, I had no difficulty in spotting Lachy’s red, flushed face and also the pale cadaverous one of Alistair the shepherd. There appeared to be some sort of argument in progress between the two.

  ‘Lachy, my lad,’ I heard Alistair say with complete amiability, ‘if you say that to me again, I’ll throw you out the door.’

  ‘Alistair, my boy,’ replied Lachy with equal affability. ‘I’ll say it to you again, and if you don’t like it I’ll smash your head through the counter.’

  The argument terminated in a brief but cyclonic disturbance among the lounging figures; the barman shouted and the amazed crowd parted to reveal a dazed and vanquished shepherd pulling splinters of the bar counter from his hair. Lachy bent and solicitously assisted his victim to rise.

  ‘Lachy, my boy,’ began the shepherd respectfully. ‘you kept your word, man, and I’m one as respects a man who can keep his word.’ He turned to the barman. ‘Two doubles quick now, and we’ll feel the better for it,’ he commanded.

  Soon the erstwhile combatants were tossing off two doubles, topping them with another two, and, with arms entwined about each other’s shoulders, were already proceeding into the next stage of the argument which, according to the cook’s experience, they would not be long in reaching.

  ‘Goodness! Here it is three o’clock in the evenin’ and time we were makin’ for home,’ broke in Morag, as she caught sight of the clock.

  ‘My, how the clock runs away with the time,’ said the cook politely.

  We said goodbye, and were shortly being ushered through the main doorway of the hotel as though we were honoured guests, I trying hard to look as though I had paid for my dinner.

  We had to pass by the public bar entrance where I saw on the road several scraps of material of different colours. Morag, seeing the direction of my glance, bent down and picked up one of them.

  ‘Aye, but it’s always like this after a sale,’ she said.

  ‘It’s the neckband of a shirt, isn’t it?’ I asked.

  ‘It is so,’ agreed Morag, ‘and I’ve a good idea this one belongs to our Ruari.’

  ‘But how on earth?’ I began, when my question was cut short by a commotion inside the bar; the door burst open and out tumbled Lachy and Alistair, fighting mad once again. Lachy flung off his coat; Alistair had already discarded his. For a moment or two the men glared at one another ferociously and then each, with one swift movement that could only have been achieved with practice, pulled his clean cotton shirt up and over his head, leaving the tight cuffs around his wrists and the neckband around his neck. There was no need to finish my question.

  ‘Come on!’ said Morag, oblivious of the fact that I was already a few yards ahead of her. ‘Best leave them to fight it out.’

  We had agreed that our best plan was to walk on homeward until we were picked up by the bus. In this way we should avoid being crowded and also miss most of the drunks, who, according to Morag’s reckoning, would by that time have been dropped off, knocked out or put to sleep in the rear. Also it would save us having to wait about for the bus as the time of its departure even on normal days was wellnigh unpredictable. We set off at a brisk pace and had not gone far before we overtook Donald Beag, one of the crofters, shepherding in front of him an unusually docile black-faced ewe and her two tiny lambs. Now I must admit that there had been a time when the sight of curly little lambs provoked in me a sentimental leaning towards vegetarianism, but after a year or so of heather-fed mutton I am afraid the sight of them merely made my mouth water. Donald was glad of our company and so that he might keep pace with us he urged on the sheep by beating his side with his artificial arm, the gleaming hook of which aroused memories of Barrie’s infamous captain. The Great War which had deprived Donald of his arm had in recompense provided him with a fund of stories of his experiences, which he was always ready to relate, but now he listened avidly while I recounted the story of the runaway cow.

  ‘My, my,’ he exclaimed as I finished, ‘you mean to tell me you havena’ the Gaelic yet then?’

  I told him that my knowledge of Gaelic was limited to such phrases as ‘Kamera-ha’ and ‘Ha-goo-ma’.

  ‘Indeed and it’s surprising how far that bit itself will take you supposin’ you have no other words of the language,’ said Donald, with a wisely reminiscent smile, and embarked on a war anecdote to illustrate his words.

  He was once, he told us, in a trench with a couple of dozen other soldiers when a shell came over and not one but himself was left alive. He picked himself up and started to walk away from the trench, but though he walked and walked he met with no living soul. He walked until dusk and then, espying the ruins of a house, he made towards them. Just as he reached the
m a figure jumped from behind a wall, held up its arms and shouted, ‘Kamerad, Kamerad.’

  ‘Ach, well,’ continued Donald. ‘There was a good few Gaelic speakers in our regiment at that time, so I just holds out my hand and says, “Ha-goo-ma”. As soon as I’d said it we both stared at each other and then we both turned and ran like blazes in opposite directions.’

  Donald chuckled at the memory. ‘Ach, but I was sorry enough afterwards I can tell you,’ he went on. ‘For I’d sooner have had a German to talk to than nobody at all, and I daresay that with the Gaelic we might have understood each other pretty well.’

  As Donald’s story came to an end we were drawing level with an elderly man who was making repeated attempts to drive an emaciated cow before him. It was fortunate that he had not far to go or he would have stood little chance of getting the beast home.

  ‘What on earth came over the man to buy himself a beast like that?’ muttered Morag under her breath. ‘It looks as though it started to shiver when the frost came and it’s still frozen into its shiver.’

  I thought it an apt description, but Donald was not to be outdone.

  ‘You need to get a rope on that cow quickly,’ he shouted to the owner.

  ‘A rope?’ The old man looked bewildered. ‘Why, she’s that quiet she has no need of a rope.’

  ‘It’s no to quiet her she’s needin’ it,’ said Donald with brutal candour, ‘it’s to keep her from fallin’ to pieces.’

  The man glowered in reply and as the sheep were in better condition than the cow we soon left him behind. Some distance in front of us we could see a knot of people and animals progressing slowly along the road. I have never been able to determine whether the crofters walk slowly so as not to distress the animals they herd, or whether the animals walk slowly out of consideration for the crofters they lead. Whichever way it was I had learned that, short of brutality, it was impossible to hurry either a crofter or his cow. As we drew abreast of them we were hailed delightedly by the jovial red-faced drovers, many of whom I remembered having seen quite recently in the bar. They were decidedly merry and seemed quite unconcerned whether they reached home that night or the next day. Bottles were soon being extricated from jacket pockets and proffered confidentially. Had glasses been obtainable Morag and I would have had great difficulty in refusing their generosity but fortunately they accepted the fact that bottles were for the privileged, or not so particular, menfolk.