Jack and the Devil's Purse
Page 19
‘Well,’ he says, ‘I didna get your hay finished. I dinna ken if it’s going to come on rain or no. And there’s a lot –’
‘Dinna worry, laddie! Dinna go home tonight!’ Maggie says. ‘There’s plenty of room for you – ye can stay here. I’ll make you a nice bed at the kitchen fire. Your mother’ll ken where ye are. She’ll no worry about ye.’
‘All right,’ says Jack.
But anyway, Jack goes away out again, works another half day. But he thought to himself, ‘There’s something funny about that old sister o’ hers. Maggie says she’s older than her, but she looks younger than her. And the way I saw her moving her feet in alow the table, there’s no much wrong wi her legs! And she disna use a staff because there’s no a staff lying against the table. There’s something kind o’ droll – I canna figure it out. But anyway, I’ll mind what my mother tellt me,’ so he’s thinking.
But he works on again till five o’clock. The old woman gives him a shout, takes him in, gives him his supper.
Now it be coming on late in the year, the hay was late, it was about September month. The nights were coming in close. The two old women made a bed to Jack at the front o’ the fire, put a big fire o’ peats on. And they went away up the stairs to their bed. Jack fell asleep.
He’s lying and the fire’s burning down low, ken, when the peats burn down low it’s just a red grìosach, a red fire. And he hears the feet coming down, the two old sisters coming walking down the stairs. They come right to the fire.
And old Jeannie, the one who was supposed to be crippled, says, ‘He’s sleeping. He’ll no hear you, he’s sleeping.’
Jack was lying, and he lifted the blanket a wee bit. He keeked out. This is the two old sisters, and the other ane is walking as good as you and me! They go over to the side o’ the grate. And there’s an oven at the side of the grate. They open the door of the oven, and one takes out a red cowl. That’s a kind o’ woolly bonnet or ‘toorie’ with a long tassel on it.
One pulls one right down over her hair. The other one takes another one out and she pulls it over her hair. And they say, ‘Hooch for London!’
They’re gone – both of them were gone!
Jack got up, wandered around the house, lighted a lamp, searched the house upside-down outside-in, but na! Round to the byre, the cow was standing eating at the back of the byre. Right round the hayfield, he searched round the place. The two old sisters were gone, there was not a bit to be seen o’ them! So he searched round and round every shed, every nook, into the henhouse, round the fields, down to the well – not a soul to be seen. The two old sisters had completely vanished. He couldn’t find them anywhere.
He goes back into the house, kindles up the fire and makes himself a cup of tea.
‘Man,’ he says to himself, ‘I doubt my mother was right. Where could those two old women go to this time o’ night?’ He looks at the clock. It was dead on twelve o’clock when they left, and now it was near one in the morning. Still no signs o’ them. ‘Ach,’ he says, ‘it’ll no matter. I canna explain it. Maybe my mother’ll tell me. But anyway, I’m going to see it through, I’m going to see what happens here. I’m no going home till I see what happens!’
But he put some more peats on the fire, went back to his bed and happed himself up. But he must have fallen asleep. He was sleeping for about a couple o’ hours when he heard the door opening.
In came the first sister, and in came the second sister walking as good as me and you! Each had a bag in their hand, a leather bag. They placed the bags down on the table. And it was ‘clink’; with the way they clinked – it was money that was in the bags.
So one says to the other, ‘Jeannie, one for you, one for me. Put them back in the same place where we put the rest!’
‘Right!’ Away goes old Jeannie up the stairs with the two bags and puts them away.
Jack’s lying there. He never says a word. The other old sister comes over and she stands aside the fire, she listens to see if she could hear him.
She says to herself, ‘He’s sleeping, he’s never wakened. He disna ken the difference.’ She went away up the stairs, closed the door and all was silent.
But anyway, Jack fell asleep and he must have slept on. The first thing that wakened him was the old wife giving him a shout in the morning:
‘Jack, it’s time to get up, seven o’clock. Rise and get your breakfast!’
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘I’ll get up.’
Jack got up, put on his clothes, had a wash. The old wife came round, gave him a good breakfast, porridge an’ milk an’ eggs.
She said, ‘How are you this morning, Jack? Did ye sleep well last night? Anything disturb ye during the night?’
‘Not a thing disturbed me during the night,’ he said, ‘I slept like a lamb the whole night through.’
‘That’s good,’ she says, ‘you must have been working hard.’
But anyway, Jack goes out, sharpens his scythe. Out to the field, he starts again, cuts away an’ cuts away, finishes the hay. All the hay is lying out.
Old Maggie comes out, gives him a shout again, ‘Come on in, Jack, it’s about dinner time!’
He comes, gets his dinner, sits an’ cracks to them for a long, long while. They ask him about his mother and all these things, about his croft, one thing and another until the dinner hour is up.
‘Ah well,’ he said, ‘I’ll have to go away back out an’ get on with the work.’
So he went out and he started turning the hay. It was a lovely sunny day. He worked away till night-time again. He came in, had his supper. To make a long story short it came to bedtime again. The two old sisters bade him good-night.
Jack made his bed by the fire and he lay down. He looked at the clock. An old wag-at-the-wall clock was what they had on the wall: half past eleven . . . Jack’s sound in bed.
But just on the chap o’ twelve o’clock he hears the feet coming down the stairs again. Down they come. One says to the other, ‘Is he sleeping?’
She says, ‘He’s sound. He must have worked hard today, but we’ll make it worth his while. We’ll give him a good pay.’
He’s lying, Jack’s lying there. He hears every word.
Up they go again to the grate, open the door of the oven. Out come the two cowls, on to their heads, ‘Hooch for London!’ They’re off, off they go!
Same thing happened again. Jack got up, searched the house upside-down, went up the stairs. The door to their bedroom was locked.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘I cannae break the door down – they’ll ken I was up the stairs.’
He searched the house upside and down and he found this key. He tried it and the door opened. He went into their bedroom, and round the whole room. And in alow the bed he pulled out this big box, a leather-bound trunk. It was packed with wee bags, and every single bag was full o’ sovereigns, gold sovereigns!
‘Hmm,’ he said, ‘there’s as much money there as would do everybody in the Isle of Skye!’
And he shoved it back in below their bed, shut the door, locked it, put the key back where he had found it, he went away back down, back to his bed, fell sound asleep. He never heard them coming back.
The next morning they came down and wakened him again. Maggie said, ‘Had you a good sleep last night, Jack?’
‘Oh, I slept, I was tired, dead tired. I’ll finish the hay today, and—’
‘Ah, but you’ll have to put it up in ricks for us,’ she says, ‘because it will be wet lying like that. And ye ken you’ll have to put it in stacks for us and do a bit o’ repairs before you go away home, fencing an’ that. I can employ you for a week. Your mother kens where you are so she’ll no worry about you.’
He’s thinking to himself now, ‘Where they go tonight, I’m going with them!’
‘Oh, but,’ she says, ‘I forgot to tell you, Jack. There’s a lot o’ clothes here about your size that belonged to my brother. He was just about your age when he was killed. And there’s a lot o’ stuff here that’s nae us
e to me and my old sister. We’ll look it out for ye and you’ll take it home wi ye, it’ll do for working wi‘. My brother was killed.’
He says, ‘What happened to your brother?’
‘Oh,’ she says, ‘he was killed down in London. Anyway, we’ll no speak about that.’
So Jack works all day, comes in, has his dinner. Works on in the afternoon again, has his supper. And he comes back in, goes to his bed.
Twelve o’clock he hears the feet coming down the stairs. He says, ‘Where they’re going tonight, I’m going with them!’
One old sister says to the other, ‘I think he’s sleeping, he’s no moving.’
Over to the side of the fire they go, open the door beside the wee grate, pull out the cowls. On their heads, ‘Hooch for London!’
Jack gets up out o’ the bed, runs to the fire. He opens the oven and there’s one red toorie left. He pulls it on his head, ‘Hooch for London!’ he says. ‘Hooch for London!’
He travelled through the air at about a hundred miles an hour wi this cowl on his head and the two sisters in front o’ him. They circled round London and down – right through a window! And with the welt he got coming down, he didna ken any words to stop himself for landing, he was knocked out completely. See, they knew words for to cushion their blow, how to land, but he didnae. He landed after them.
When he wakened up, you know where he was lying? He was lying inside a cellar in the Royal Mint – and he was surrounded by thousands o’ bags of gold sovereigns! And his toorie was gone. So were the two old sisters. They were gone. But this is where they had been going, robbing the mint every night. Two witches! But Jack searched all around . . . the mint was locked, there was no way o’ him getting out – impossible!
So in the morning when the guards came down they got him sitting inside the mint. Now this was what had happened to their brother before, to the sisters’ old brother. Oh, Jack was in a terrible state now – he didna ken what to do with himself!
So the guards, they asked him how he got in. But he couldn’t explain. He said he didna ken how he got in. So in those days for stealing out o’ the mint, the penalty was death, sentenced to death. You were hanged in an open court out in the front o’ the public square.
Jack is arrested, taken out of the cellar o’ the mint, taken up to the court, tried and sentenced to be hanged for robbing the Royal Mint. And so many dozens o’ bags of gold that had gone a-missing – he got the blame o’ the lot.
But anyway, he lay in the jail for three days, till the day he was to be hanged. He was taken out, taken up the steps, the thirteen steps to the scaffold and put on the scaffold. The hangman came, put the rope round his neck. And the minister came up to say two or three words to him before they hanged him.
The minister says to Jack, ‘John, you were sentenced to death for robbing the Royal Mint. Have you anything to say before ye get hanged?’
When up the steps to the scaffold runs this old lady! She says to the hangman, ‘Yes, I’ve got something to say!’ And she placed the cowl on Jack’s head, ‘Hooch for Skye!’ she said. The two of them were off!
And when Jack wakened up he was lying at the side of the fire back in the two old sisters’ croft. As he wakens up this old sister’s shouting to him, ‘Jack, get up! It’s time to get on wi your work!’
So Jack worked all week for the two old sisters, forgot all about it. He said, ‘I must have been dreaming – that never really happened to me – I must have been dreaming. Or, was my mother right . . . did I dream or did it really happen? But anyway, I must ask them!’
At the end of the week he said to the two old sisters, ‘Was I ever out o’ here?’
‘No,’ old Maggie says, ‘Jack, ye werena out o’ here. You worked well. You’ve been the best worker ever we had here. You did everything!’
‘But,’ he says, ‘was I no away from here, this place, during the night or anything? Did anything funny happen?’
‘Na! You slept like a lamb o’ God,’ she says. ‘You never were away from this place. Every morning we came down at breakfast time you were ay lying in your bed, and you were lying in your bed when we went to our bed at night. You’ve never been out of this place since you came – for a full week.’
‘Ah well, that’s funny . . . ach, it must hae been a dream I had. I dreamed that I landed in . . .’ he tellt her the whole story. He landed in the mint and he was to be hanged till death. ‘And you,’ he says, ‘came.’
‘Ach Jack,’ she says, ‘you’ve been dreaming! The same thing happened to my poor brother. He had a dream like that too. But that’s the last we ever saw o’ him.’
So the old sister went away to get something for Jack, something for his breakfast. And he opened the oven and he keeked in. Inside the oven were three red toories, inside the oven!
He said, ‘I wasna dreaming.’ And he shut the door. She came back in.
‘Well,’ he says to the old sister, ‘that’s all your jobs finished now. I think it’s about time that I went home to see how my old mother’s getting on.’
‘Ah but, Jack,’ she says, ‘my sister has made up that bundle o’ clothes for you that belonged to my brother. I think they’ll do ye, just the very thing. You’re about his build. Wait, I’ll go an’ get ye your pay!’
So they gave him this big bundle of clothes to take back with him for his work. The two sisters went up the stairs and the one came down. She’s carrying these two wee leather bags in her hand.
‘There,’ she said, ‘Jack, there’s your pay. And that’s as much that’ll keep you and your old mother for the rest o’ your days.’
And Jack went away home to his mother and stayed happy for ever after.
And that’s the last o’ the wee story!
When I was about four years old I heard this story. My father told me the first time, and then my Uncle Duncan, a brother of my mother’s, told it to me a couple of years later. The tale is a popular one among the Highland folk, but the Travellers have their own way of telling it.
Glossary
aa
all
afore
before
ahind
behind
ain
own
alow
below
ane
one
argued and bargued
disputed
awa
away
awfae
awful
ay
always
bannock
flat oatmeal cake
barricade, barrikit
circular tent made of tree saplings with centre fire
bade
resided
begint
began
beholden
held responsible
bene
grand
bing
several
braxy
salted sheep flesh
brig
bridge
brother
term of endearment
brung
brought
buck
tramp
burkers
body snatchers, who came in the middle of the night seeking people to murder for use in medical experiments
canna
can’t
cane
house
catcht
caught
cheek
insolence
clift
cliff
cloot
cloth
collop
slice of meat
coory
snuggle, nestle
cowp
topple, overturn
crack
news, gossip
cratur
creature
crommacks
shepherds’ crooks
cruisie
open, rushie wick lamp
cry
call
cuid
could
/> dae
do
dandered
walked casually
dee’d
died
deein
dying
didna
didn’t
dinna
don’t
disna
doesn’t
dottering
stumbling feebly
dovering
dozing off
dreep
drop
dreich
dreary, miserable
droll
queer, stupid, nonsensical
eerie
afraid
etten
eaten
fae
from
feart
afraid
feelt
felt
flee
fly
follae
follow
forbyes
also
frae
from
gadgie
countryman
gang
go
gaun
going
gaunnae
going to
gie
give
gien
gave; given
gloaming
evening twilight
greetin terrible
utterly torturous
grì
low-burning embers