Torquil’s face went completely blank. ‘I’m damned if I know,’ he replied and sat down.
Soon afterwards the landlord, who must have known the futility of trying to make changes, brought the meeting to a close. His car whisked away the dispirited speaker before the audience had finally emerged from the schoolhouse.
‘Oh, my, but it’s a grand evenin’,’ said Anna Vic, looking out to sea.
It was indeed a grand evening. An evening that had followed a day that had been warm and sunny as a day of midsummer. The sea was lazy and patched at intervals with dimpled water that betrayed the presence of shoals of ‘soo-yan’. Every few minutes we would see the dimples break into silver and would hear the lisp of water as the shoal leaped to evade the pursuit of predatory lythe. A mile or so out from the shore a rabble of gulls hovered restlessly above the sea, their bickering, protesting cries sounding thin as they reached us on the slight, sea-cooled breeze. Swinging lazily out at her mooring lay Hector’s motor boat, newly painted and refurbished in readiness for the tourists who as yet were arriving only sporadically.
‘Seein’ we’re dressed,’ said Erchy (which meant that some of us were wearing shoes instead of gumboots) ‘what about a cruise?’
‘Why not?’ agreed Hector. There was an immediate move to launch the dinghy.
‘I’ll need to tell Katy,’ someone said.
‘I’ll need to see to the hens.’
There were so many people to be told and invited to come along; so many chores which needed to be done, that we arranged to meet at the shore in an hour’s time. Knowing I could safely stretch the hour another ten minutes I did so but when I arrived at the shore only Hector and Erchy and Janet were there, sitting on the gunwale of the dinghy awaiting passengers.
‘May as well put you two out,’ said Hector and rowed us to the motor boat. We climbed aboard but Janet, whose eyes had at once begun to scan the land, suddenly seemed anxious.
‘Is that no my cow there, Erchy?’ she asked, pointing, to an animal that was grazing perilously near to the steep cliff edge.
‘Aye, so it is,’ Erchy confirmed.
‘Then I must get to her an’ drive her away.’ Janet started to climb back into the dinghy. ‘Isn’t that the place her own mother fell over only last spring?’
‘It must be in the beast’s nature,’ said Hector.
‘Nature or no, I’ll need to get her away from that cliff,’ insisted Janet. The two men rowed her ashore and I was left alone on the boat. I sat in the stern, listening to the music of the sea as it caressed the boat; peering down into the clear green-grey shoaly depths. I thought of ninety year old Donald, a pious and forthright man who would rather have cut off his right hand than tell a lie, yet who insisted that once in his youth he had seen a merman in these waters. Anyone but the virtuous Donald would have described it as being a mermaid but Donald, who would never have permitted himself to look upon a naked female form—even if it was only the top half—insisted that despite its breasts the creature was male. He had been about eighteen at the time, he used to say, and had been fishing lobster creels just around the point when the merman had risen from the water about fifty yards away from the boat. It had just stayed there, watching him and Donald had stared transfixed until the creature had seemed to stretch out an arm as if beckoning him. Then Donald had taken fright. He let go of the creel and grasping the oars started to row as fast as he could for home, praying for guidance as he did so. Even I believed Donald’s story, having read that there were reports of dugongs being sighted in the past in the area.
Once again the dinghy came alongside. This time it was full of people, a laughing happy crowd intent on enjoying the evening. The dinghy returned for another load. There was no limit to the number of passengers on an evening cruise. The law was interpreted as limiting the number of fare-paying passengers and as this was a free cruise for friends only the limit was reached when the boatman considered the amount of freeboard to be over the danger limit. Sometimes it could be a matter of inches.
Perhaps it is because the Hebrideans live so close to the sea that they are, or appear to be, indifferent to its hazards. A boatman may have some misgivings as to the capacity of his boat but passengers seldom have any. As an instance I recall a time when I was about to travel on the official ferry to the island one wild and stormy day. When the boatmen had come to untie the ropes that held her they saw that the number of passengers greatly exceeded the number permitted or considered safe. They had refused to sail until some disembarked. No one had made any move. The boatmen were adamant. The last twenty people aboard must get off and wait for another ferry, they said. Still no-one moved.
‘I’m no takin’ this boat to sea loaded like this,’ one had insisted. ‘She’s no safe. You can see for yourselves how little free board there is. She’ll never make the other side.’
An old man had objected. ‘We’re on board now,’ he said stubbornly. ‘How can you force us to get off?’
‘I’m sayin’ she’s overloaded an’ dangerous,’ reiterated the boatman. ‘An’ some of you will need to get ashore.’
‘There’s none of us gettin’ ashore,’ the old man had told him. ‘An’ what’s more, with the tide goin’ out like it is you’ll need to sail from here or you’ll have her bangin’ her bottom out.’
The boatman looked harassed. There was no disputing the truth of the statement and he looked as if he might soon yield to persuasion. Grudgingly he begun to untie the rope from the bollard.
In a mounting panic I had pushed my way forward. If the boatman considered it unsafe I was not disposed to argue. ‘I’m getting off,’ I said, but as I was about to jump ashore the old man restrained me with a hand on my arm. ‘Don’t give in to him, madam,’ he instructed. ‘You have every right to be here. You were one of the first ones aboard.’
‘I don’t want to be one of the first ones to drown, though,’ I retorted. ‘I’m waiting for the next boat.’
The old man had seemed very disappointed by what he no doubt considered to be my treachery and only two other passengers—both of them tourists—followed my example. The boat had sailed, overcrowded as she was, and reached the other side safely. I imagined the triumph of the old man.
The last dinghy load came out. In addition to Morag and Anna Vic and Niall it contained three American girls who had arrived in the village only that evening. Already Hector had appropriated the attention of one of them, a pretty blonde.
‘Here, look after that for a minute,’ Niall said, taking off his wooden leg and throwing it to me. With only one good leg Niall was as agile on land or sea as any man with two. He always referred to his wooden leg as his ‘spare leg’.
‘Okay, start her up,’ he instructed Hector and went forward to cast off the mooring. Niall though owning a croft in Bruach spent little of his time in the village, being mostly away on a variety of jobs. When he was at home he seemed to consider that the whole village was in need of his care and attention.
There was rarely any preconceived plan or intended destination for these impromptu evening cruises. The passengers were content to sing and chatter while allowing the helmsman to steer in any direction he fancied. Mostly we just wandered about the sea, perhaps towards caves or a cove that looked interesting. Occasionally we landed to explore some spot that was relatively inaccessible by land or perhaps finding ourselves near a harbour of one of the islands we would go ashore and descend on a household—always there was a claim to kinship—where we would enjoy a ceilidh. It was no hardship for a household to have a party of say twenty to thirty people arriving around midnight without warning. Rather it was the reverse. In the lonely places of the Hebrides a hostess regards it as an honour for her home to be chosen by visitors and it is she on parting who thanks the guests for partaking of her hospitality. The moment the presence of a boatload of people was discerned near the harbour the kettle would go on the fire, a batch of girdle scones prepared and hopefully a male member of the house would make quickly
for the shore to claim the privilege of offering entertainment.
Tonight, Niall took over the helm Hector being too busy with his blonde to have time for attending to his boat. It soon became plain that Niall was taking us towards a small isolated bay where a tumbling burn edged with a white frill the skirts of a range of black craggy hills, dividing them from a tiny acreage of flat land and an opposing range of equally gaunt hills. A bothy built to house the river watchers stood near the river bank, its negligible chimney busy with smoke.
There was no landing place so Erchy blew expertly into a cow’s horn to summon the launching of a dinghy to take us ashore. He blew several times before there was a sign of life. Then an old man appeared, waved exaggeratedly with both hands high above his head and came hurrying down to where the dinghy lay. He dragged it down to the water.
‘That’s watchers for you,’ Johnny pointed out sarcastically. ‘They’re supposed to be keepin’ an eye open for poachers an’ here’s us could have netted the lot in the time it’s taken for him to see we’re here.’
Hector lifted his head from the blonde’s shoulder. ‘I don’t know why we didn’t,’ he said ruefully. ‘Tsere’s a net ready under tse floorboards.
‘Whist!’ Erchy cautioned him as the dinghy drew close. ‘Padruig will hear you.’
Niall manoeuvred the boat as close inshore as the tide would permit to save lengthy ferrying and when all but he and Erchy and Hector were ashore it was suggested that we should go up to the house while they moored the boat at a safer distance from the shore. Erchy took over the dinghy while Padruig led us towards the bothy.
There was no doubting our welcome and we crowded into the cell-like bothy, with its bare wood walls and uncovered cement floor. Except for a rough plank bed beside the fire the only furniture was a table and three chairs all obviously contrived from driftwood. Along one wall of the room was a line of nearly full sacks containing oatmeal, flour, sugar and potatoes. On a low shelf stood several rusty biscuit tins, doubtless containing such things as tea and bi-carbonate of soda and cream-of-tartar. The men sat themselves on the sacks and biscuit tins while Padruig dragged clumsily at a heap of rope fenders stored in a corner. Gallantly he handed me a fender, assuring me that it would be a very comfortable seat. There were still not enough seats so a long plank of wood was brought in and supported on two cans of paraffin.
It was a full half hour later when Erchy and Niall arrived, followed by Hector shepherding in the three Americans who had been hesitant about following the rest of the crowd, fearing they might not be welcome. But of course they were.
‘Come away in, mo ghaoils,’ invited Mairi, Padruig’s wife, in much the same tones she would have used if they had been her neighbours for years. ‘Come away in an’ seat yourselves.’ It was easier said than done but room was made for two of them on the plank. Hector, who had of course contrived to occupy one of the chairs, indicated to the blond that she should sit on his knee. She did so happily, amid light-hearted warnings.
Mairi was already buttering scones while behind her a girdle containing another batch was hanging above a fire of driftwood piled high on the flat stone hearth. A steaming kettle stood to one side.
‘Will I fuse the tea?’ asked Morag helpfully. Mairi with a nod of her head directed her to the biscuit tin on which Johnny was seated and she disturbed him to scoop out handfuls of tea into the large, smoke-blackened metal pot.
‘An’ how’s bothyin’ agreein’ with you, Mairi?’ enquired Anna Vic.
‘Ach, I like it fine,’ replied Mairi. ‘It makes like a holiday for me.’
It is unusual to find a woman in residence in a watcher’s bothy. Normally the men fend for themselves while they are watching, hence the sketchiness of the accommodation. However, when Mairi’s husband, Padruig, and her son, Sandy, had taken the job of watchers for the season, she, being a conscientious wife and mother, had insisted on sharing their life at the bothy. She had also brought their one cow and their hens, maintaining that the change had made like a holiday for them too.
One of the Americans was looking puzzled. She was tall, bespectacled and pimply and she had a loud, insistent voice.
‘Don’t you have any room but this one?’ she asked.
Mairi admitted that this was their only accommodation.
‘You mean the three of you share this room—even for sleeping?’ asked the girl.
‘There’s not three of us sleepin’ at the same time,’ Mairi told her. ‘My husband and my son are here to watch, not to sleep.’
‘What about the mails? Do you get any mails here?’
‘Indeed yes!’ There was more than a trace of indignation in Mairi’s voice. ‘Once or twice a week the man comes over. When there’s anythin’ worth bringin’ to folk such as ourselves. We wouldn’t expect him to come all this way with somethin’ that didn’t matter.’
‘But what about supplies? How do you manage for food and things?’
‘We brought them when we came.’ Main nodded proudly towards the line of full sacks and tins. ‘With that an’ the milk we get from the cow an’ eggs from my few hens. An’ with the sea full of fish an’ a salmon for the takin’ why would we be needin’ supplies?’ Mairi was very patient. ‘Are there no parts of your country, mo ghaoil, where they have river watchers that cannot get to the shops?’
The girl looked a little subdued. ‘I guess so, but they wouldn’t have to manage without a telephone nearby and electricity.’
‘Aye,’ said Mairi, ‘I believe in your country they’re great ones for the electric.’
‘Where’s Sandy away to?’ asked Erchy.
‘He’s away collectin’ gulls’ eggs,’ Padruig told him. ‘He’ll he back in a wee whiley I doubt.’
Erchy inclined his head in the direction of Ealasaid. ‘I’m thinkin’ you’re right,’ he said knowingly.
Ealasaid gave no indication that she had heard either question or reply and continued her chatter with her friends.
‘Are you hearin’ me?’ Erchy called to her.
She gave him a pert glance. ‘I’m hearin’ you,’ she replied with a toss of her head. The company exchanged winks and grins.
Ealasaid was the shepherd’s daughter and she was extremely beautiful; tall and slim and creamy-complexioned with hair that glowed red as a heather fire on a dark night. All the men of the village paid tribute to her beauty but it was only Sandy who could make her blush. She was a kindly girl, gentle and yet always ready for fun, admirably suited one would have said for the career of nursing which she had chosen to follow. Unfortunately for Ealasaid, however, soon after commencing her training her mother had died and Ealasaid had thought it only right to come home and look after her father and the croft. She expressed no regret at having to forsake her career and I wondered sometimes if perhaps the necessary separation from Sandy it had entailed had worried her more than she cared to disclose. Even before leaving school Ealasaid and Sandy had become close friends and everyone predicted their eventual union. But Sandy it seemed was in no hurry to marry and now Ealasaid was receiving the ardent attention of a man from a neighbouring village who though comparatively rich was despised by the Bruachites.
Anna Vic passed round large mugs of steaming tea. There were only half a dozen mugs available so we shared, passing them to one another and sipping as we felt inclined. If we wanted a piece of scone we jumped up and helped ourselves from the dish on the table.
‘Here’s Sandy now,’ announced Padruig. There came the sound of whistling and footsteps from outside. Ealasaid turned her back towards the door and Sandy came in, filling the doorway with his tallness and broadness. He was a splendid looking man, fair haired and with a face that would have struck one as grim except for the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and a slight whimsical twist to the corners of his tight mouth. He was quiet and dour even among his friends and yet he was liked and admired by everyone. He reminded me of Gary Cooper and had I been twenty years younger I have no doubt I should have fallen head over he
els in love with him myself.
In his hand Sandy carried a large milk pail full to the top with gulls’ eggs. He put the pail on the table and nodded to his father. Padruig immediately took up the large iron cooking pot and went outside. He returned with it half full of water and into it the eggs were put, one by one, after being tested in a bowl of sea water—the good ones sank, the bad ones floated. Sandy hung the pot over the fire and half an hour later when they were hard boiled we were all peeling the shells off the eggs and biting into their goodness. The American girls were enthralled until one of them found an embryo in hers.
‘It’s all right,’ Erchy assured her. ‘You just pick that part out and throw it away.’ But she threw the remains into the fire. ‘You would need to have your gulls’ eggs scrambled,’ he advised her. ‘You don’t notice things like that then.’
‘The tide’s goin down pretty fast,’ said Niall and stood up. ‘We’d best be away.’
Hector decanted the blonde from his knee and jumped up. ‘We’ll away an’ bring in the boat,’ he said, going to the door. Erchy and Niall followed him. ‘We’ll blow on the cow’s horn as soon as we’re ready.’ Ealasaid was the only one to show signs of impatience.
‘Ach, Ealasaid’s wantin’ plenty of time to get ready for the big dance tomorrow,’ said Anna Vic.
Sandy spoke. ‘Dance? What dance?’
‘Why, Ealasaid’s fine fellow’s givin’ a dance tomorrow night. He’s hired a hall for it an’ got the fiddler an’ the melodeon comin’. It’s to be a grand do. Did you no hear?’
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