by Jess Smith
And, of course, as history has witnessed, my parents stayed together until death. So my Granny, bless her, accepted Jeannie, but always kept her opinions to herself.
‘Two groups of people who will never lie to you are teachers and churchmen,’ she told us. ‘Teachers tell you what is in books, and preachers about the good book.’ Those words of old-fashioned wisdom were her teaching to her brood. Many times we’d sit huddled around her black, shiny range at ‘Lettoch Beag’, the Riley home on the hill outside Moulin, Pitlochry, listening to tales from the Bible.
‘Always question what folks say to you, except if it be a teacher or preacher.’
Now imagine my surprise when one day at school we were taught Darwin’s ‘Theory of Evolution’. I could hardly contain myself. ‘Granny must know this,’ was all I could think of, ‘she’ll go pure horn moich when she hears what my teacher told us.’
So there I was, standing outside, not allowed in until she’d finished blackening her range. ‘Granny, wait till you hear what I have to say, hurry up and let me in.’
At long last the door was opened to me, and with strict orders to walk on the newspaper spread over the linoleum, I stepped in. She sat me down with a big piece of raspberry jam. ‘Well, bairn, who disnae ken a thing about patience, what is it?’
‘You telt me that Adam and Eve are the mither and faither o’ a’ mankind, Granny, isn’t that true?’
Furrows wrinkled her wee brow, eyes narrowed. ‘Aye, and who has been filling yer heed wi’ lies?’
‘My teacher at the school, Granny, he said we’re frae “apes”. Every brother, mother, father, daughter and dog o’ us comes from monkeys, what dae ye think o’ that, Granny?’
I left my chair because although she was a wee cratur, there was still plenty power in the fist. Standing by a blue vase of flowers on the window ledge I waited.
For a while she said nothing, then, like a light bulb had lit up in her head, she smiled broadly and said, ‘Oh aye, Jessie, I ken what that nice teacher was telling you—he was talking about your mother’s folk!’
Thankfully my salt-of-the-earth relatives have a sense of humour!
17
THE FOX, THE COW, THE DEAD MAN AND THE WEE LADDIE IN THE BARREL
I want to take you back to my father’s life now, which according to him was a hard one, walking behind the horse pulling the heavy cart, gutters and horse-dung caking onto his trousers with each cold step of the way.
As the song says:
Come all you tramps and hawker lads,
That gi’ed the way a blaw,
That tramped the country round and round,
Come listen one and a’,
An’ I’ll tell tae ye a roving tale o’ sichts that I hae seen,
Far up and to the snowy north and doon by Gretna Green.
My father wasn’t a great one for storytelling, but when it came, boy was it big. One of my favourite tales of sights that he had seen is this one. It’s as tall a tale as you’re likely to hear, but I love it, and might I add that I’ve heard versions of it in Wales, London, Yorkshire, Norwich and on the banks of the Manchester Canal, all told by travellers.
‘James, ma boy, do your old father a favour and exercise these ponies on the moor for me.’
‘Aye, father, I’ll steer them over the moor, let them loose to graze.’
‘While you’re wandering, son, fetch your dear old mother a trout for tea.’
The moor was a cantankerous place: one minute there would be a clear blue sky, next a fog thick enough to throw cover over a field of cows a few feet from you.
James was a good lad, but much to the annoyance of his mother, a lazy streak had come upon him. With this in mind, she called after him, ‘don’t dare forget to guddle the trout; there’ll be no tea for any of us if you do.’
A gentle wave of the hand saw him reach the brow of the hill; then he and the dappled ponies were out of sight. On the expanse of heather intermingled with patches of green grass, he sent his ponies to graze at leisure. There wasn’t a single human being for miles. He sent his jaw into a giant yawn. ‘I’ll lay down here for a few moments while they fill their bellies, plenty time to search for a burn. There’s enough of the day left to guddle trout for tea.’ Soon lazy James was fast asleep. The ‘kweek, kweek’ of a buzzard soaring brought his slumber to a halt. He sat up, and oh my, had the thickest fog not covered the moor. Whistling and calling should have brought the horses, but it didn’t. Panic crept in. ‘Surely they’ve not wandered off,’ he thought. ‘Father will tan my hide if I’ve lost his two newly-bought ponies that recently cost him an arm and a leg.’ Thinking about limbs, his were shivering. This was a dreich cold fog, a right pea-souper.
Although it was still summer, he’d enough knowledge of the mist-shrouded moor to know if one got lost in it the situation could be hazardous and even fatal. ‘I’ll search for the animals later, first off, best find somewhere to get a bit warmth,’ he said, rubbing his cold body. Fog over the moorland can be a devil, just what direction had he come and where was he going? On and on he stomped, until, praise be, he saw a light; far off at the top of a hill, a flickering salvation awaited him. His step quickened; getting nearer he could just make out the outline of a small cottage. At last he stood inspecting the door, then knocked wildly, hoping for a kind word and a wee bit shelter. He didn’t have long to wait before a couthie-faced woman opened it. ‘What can I do for you, son?’ she asked.
‘I need shelter until the fog lifts, can I stay here?’
For a moment she gave it some thought, then her face lit up. ‘Of course you can, but only if you do me a favour.’
‘Anything, wife, what is it?’
‘My man needs looking after. Can you sit with him until I get back? My neighbour needs me, I’ll only be gone a half hour at most.’
James smiled and stepped inside. ‘Where’s the man then?’ he enquired, then thought to himself, ‘strange request this—I canny see a soul.’
The only answer she gave was the door slamming shut behind her and the noise of her footsteps trailing off as she hurried away. The first thing he did was make for the glowing flames of a grand fire. Soup bubbling in a black pot brought a rumble to his belly, but what of the man? ‘Hello,’ he gingerly whispered, thinking that the husband might be sick in bed, ‘where are you, sir?’
From a dark shadowy corner of the kitchen came a low growl of a male voice, ‘I’m over here.’
James near fell flat on his face, for tip-toeing very cautiously across to where the sound came from, all he could see upon a pine table was a long oblong box, draped with a black cloth. ‘What in hell’s blazes is this, I’m still asleep on the moor, for surely I’m not alone wi’ a corpse?’ He peered inside, shaking like jelly. ‘I’m James, and all’s that I want is a heat at the fire. Now can you please show yourself, for the presence of a death-box brings a want on me to empty my bowels.’
‘Dinna fret, laddie, I’m here in the box, but it’s not what you think. You see, I’m not dead. An old gypsy woman gave me a potion to fake death, but my reasons are my business.’
Then, to put the lid on matters, the so-called corpse rose up and got down from the table.
James headed for the door, shouting at the dead-like stranger, ‘to hell with fog, I’d rather take my chances than stay in here.’
‘Look lad,’ said the man, putting a hand on James’s shaking shoulders. ‘You away ben the room and have a sleep; take no notice of me, leave whenever the fog clears.’
Slipping into the wee bedroom, James quickly shut the door, leaning a chair against it for safety. Soon, lazy as ever, he was fast asleep, only to be abruptly wakened by an almighty crack from a shotgun. Throwing back the chair he was soon standing in the kitchen. What a horrible thing had happened. Two people—the woman he recognised, but her companion a stranger—lay dead on the floor, and gaping holes in each of their chests. The husband, sitting up in the coffin, had forgotten about James. ‘I hadn’t reckoned on you seeing
this, boy, but I’ve had suspicions that this man was having an affair with my wife. And I was right, because the pair o’ them laughed at me dead in the box, but they’re no laughing now, are they laddie? Oh no, this gun wiped the smiles off their faces for good.’
James edged his terrified body inch by inch towards the door, trying not to look at the pools of blood oozing from the dead bodies. His hand fumbled for the door handle.
‘Where do you think you’re sneaking off to? No doubt the nearest police station. Well, sorry son, but you’re a witness, I can’t let you go.’
‘I’m a tinker, here today, gone tomorrow, what harm can I do you? Shoot everyone in the place if you like, it makes no odds to me. The polis give me nightmares, they’re the last folk I’d be running tae.’
‘Sorry son, but I can’t take that chance.’ He grabbed hold of James, wrapping a strong arm around his throat. A vase of flowers stood upon a barrel in the corner of the room. Smash went the vase; flowers scattered over the murdered couple. Suddenly, poor weak laddie that he was, he found himself being pushed down into the barrel. In terrifying seconds the murderer was hammering the barrel-lid tight shut with several big nails.
‘Right, my boy, away you go.’ Round and round, bumping and rolling from side to side, rapidly gathering speed as he plummeted downhill to God knows where, went James in his wooden-slatted coffin. On and on, thump, bang, faster and faster. He closed his eyes and waited on the crash that would surely see him dashed to smithereens on rocks somewhere below. However, and a million thanks to someone on high came from that desolate youngster, the barrel landed on soft ground. But wait on, it wasn’t earth where he’d landed, it was water—he’d rolled out on a pond or something. He opened his eyes; much to his horror water was seeping through the staves of the barrel. Quickly he retrieved a small pen-knife from his pocket, and began chiselling a wee hole. From his peephole he could just make out a cow drinking at the grass edge. It was impossible to turn the barrel to the shore, so he set about scooping handfuls of water, pouring them out of the hole.
‘Make the hole bigger and catch me a trout,’ came a demand from the pond edge.
‘Who’s out there? Please help me. I’ll guddle trout all day for you, but I’m drowning in here—hurry.’
‘Look back through the hole.’
James frantically peered out, only to see an old red fox staring back at him. ‘Am I going mad?’ he asked himself. ‘Two murdered folk and a corpse, now a blinking talking fox.’
‘If you think on any longer, that water will be the end of you, now do you want out or not?’
‘What stupid kind of a question is that? Wait and I’ll have that fish.’ James sliced bits of the barrel until he’d a hole wide enough to take his hand, then, with a turn of his body he flipped over the barrel, and in went a trout as he flipped it round again. Taking the head of the struggling fish, he pushed it through the hole. ‘See, now will you save me, fox?’
In went the furry red streak, swimming up to the barrel, and before James could do a thing to stop him, the fox was heading back to the bank with the trout secured in his strong jaws.
‘Fox, what kind of a double-cross is that?’
‘Who in their right mind would trust a fox? Stupid, that’s what you are, laddie. A great looking fish, I’ll eat it later. Bye-bye, and thanks again.’
So there he was, stuck fast in a barrel rapidly taking in gallons of water; there seemed no escape. One last look from his peep-hole, and as the water filled his nostrils a last desperate thought—that cow! Was she still there? ‘Hey cow, there’s a bull looking for you.’
Abruptly the animal lifted her head, stomped the water and swatted her tail violently from side to side. No bull would get as much as a sniff of her out of season. Another swish-swat, and the tail went straight. James thrust his hand out of the hole and grabbed hold. Thinking a brute bull was about to violate her, the frightened cow went helter-skelter forward, barrel and its contents hanging on for grim death. Crash went the barrel as she lodged it between rocks, and out rolled the most grateful laddie that ever lived. He lay back and stared upwards at a clear blue sky—the fog was gone. Quickly he was on his feet now, and a sight to match any wonder was his father’s ponies grazing happily on the brae-side. Soaked but happy, he made towards them, when he heard a sound coming from thick bracken. As quiet as a mouse he peered into an opening, and there, snoring snugly, was wily old Slee Tod Lowrie, the red fox. Now what do you think lay untouched at his side? A fine fresh trout, just big enough for his family’s tea.
A short while later, as James walked over the brow of the hill, a spiral of reek wound its way from the camp-fire to meet him. He smiled broadly, holding the horses with one hand, and a juicy fish in the other. He gazed over the peaceful scene below and called out, ‘get the pan on, Mammy, I’ve guddled’.
A tall tale that one, no doubt.
18
UNDER THE BLACK WATCH COAT
I’d like now to go back into our bus of many summers, and tell you a story of a tramp who just happened to be on any road or by-way as long as it wasn’t ours. You see, Mammy had a thing about the flea-infested men of the road. Daddy was aware of this, and she’d warned him dozens of times—‘don’t dare offer them lifts. I have a hard enough time keeping my lassies’ hair clean, without thon dirty buggers bringing their vermin in among my weans.’
Daddy, just out of pure devilment, on seeing one of Mammy’s tramps at a bend in the road, would slow down until level with the scabby gent, and say through the bus window, ‘are ye for a lift, man?’
I laugh now as I write this, seeing her anger-reddened face, crochet needle whirling like a piston ring as the man, poor innocent cratur, stepped into her domain, her palace.
‘Sit doon right there on the step, an’ don’t you dare come intae my hame.’
He, being a gentleman fallen on hard times, would silently remove his cloth bunnet and sit on the floor next to Daddy’s driving seat. These were Mammy’s conditions—her home, her family, her responsibility. Not many tramps of the road would so much as open their mouths after hearing the orders being rapped at them; they were to be ‘on the bus and off again’.
However, life has a twisting road, so it does, and after the episode I am about to describe, she not only opened her door to the tramp, but a grateful heart as well. I was eleven years old.
It was August, and we had a healthy berry-picking season behind us. ‘Where to now then, girls, will we go west to Argyll, or for a change try rock pools at Dingwall?’ Daddy’s smiling face meant his pockets were full. ‘We’ll not starve this winter,’ he said, as he patted his wallet, which was thick to bursting in a back-pocket of his corduroy trousers. With a high price for pure wool that year, he’d made a packet cleaning brock from fields. The hot summer sent sheep scraping themselves at every available fence-post, leaving in some cases whole discarded fleeces. June saw them lose coats to the shearing scissors but April and May were unusually hot, hence the long strips of wool everywhere. Mammy had jarred pounds of early raspberry jam, strawberry too. My older sisters headed off to spend time in other relatives’ nests, leaving me and my three younger sisters to be spoiled rotten by our parents. Chrissie had married two years past, so she had her own wee corner of the world.
‘Well, come on now, I canna wait a’ day, east or west?’
Renie, Mary and Babsy, much to my disappointment, shouted, ‘rock pools, Daddy’.
I stamped my foot down hard on the floor, a cup wobbled in its saucer and did a wee ring dance, and before I could bring my bottom lip to meet the top it crashed onto the floor. Smithereens it was. Mammy’s face dropped at the sound of her favourite cup shattering.
‘I wanted to go west, Jessie,’ she cried, ‘but now you, wi’ yer tantrums, has went an’ broke ma bonny wee cup, so we’ll head east. Look what that temper of yours has done!’
Daddy half-smiled at me, then at the cup being brushed off the floor by Mammy, who was speaking to it as if the bloody thing w
as alive: ‘ma braw wee chenie cup; who could mak ma tea taste like you did? Look at ye intae bits wi’ that Argyllshire-loving wean.’
I sat well to the back of the bus on the journey, in a place not many like to be (you’d call it Coventry). Swallows and house martins, strengthening wee wings for their own journey come September, circled in every available blue space high above. As I always did when seeing them, I whispered a prayer to the angels that cared for birds to keep them safe, especially the late arrivals with their feathers still baby fluff.
We stopped overnight south of Inverness. You may recall the story I told you in Jessie’s Journey about how Mammy feared being close to the killing moor of Culloden, and about Arras, my saviour with a flair for bagpipes. Well, not wanting to upset her, Daddy pulled onto a wood-end several miles or so before the moor. I resigned myself to the fact that Dingwall, with its cold water, would be our stopping place before heading back to Perthshire for the tattie-lifting.
Well, there we were camped up in the wooded place, and according to my Daddy he was born just down the road from there, ahent a dyke. He always gave the same answer when I asked him where he was born—‘ahent a dyke, lassie, in a wee snow-covered canvas mansion. December it was, and by God did it no half start wi’ a wild gale, and me taking ma first breath. Ma Father broke the icy water in the burn and dipped me intae it. He telt me, did my father, that I squealt sae hard a herd o’ red deer ran back up the mountain.’
He wasn’t lying about the icy water, because one day I asked Granny and she said, ‘aye, I’ll ne’er forget poor wee Charlie, he didnae half squeal when Granddad plonked his wee naked body, head first, intae the burn.’
I was horrified and said, ‘what kind of a cruelty was that; his heart could have stopped wi’ the shock!’
‘Jessie,’ she turned me around to face her, ‘if he could take that, he could take anything life threw at him.’