Beautiful Just!

by Lillian Beckwith

  ‘Queer markings there on the leg,’ remarked the ghillie, seeing the stalker’s interest.

  ‘Aye,’ agreed the stalker, inspecting the mottled grey foreleg. The ghillie slapped the pony.

  ‘I’d best be on my way if I’m to flesh this carcass tonight yet,’ he said.

  ‘Aye, you’d best do that,’ the stalker told him. He hobbled back to the gate of the cottage and stood watching the pony plod on with its flopping burden.

  He was glad he had not been at the killing.

  Winter Stack

  ‘You have a good dung heap there,’ observed Tearlaich thoughtfully. I acknowledged his remark with a smug smile. Having by this time acquired the crofter’s and indeed the true farmer’s attitude of near reverence to manure I was very proud of my large dung heap. I didn’t know quite what I was going to do with it all but I was still very proud of it since theoretically the more muck one had the more crops one could grow. Being on my own with only a couple of animals and a few hens to provide for there was no need for me to grow large crops of anything; nor could I have harvested or stored or even sold them had I grown them and it might therefore have seemed the proportions of my muck heap were yet another instance of my growing Bruach acquisitiveness but since the cow byre had to be cleaned out regularly there was nothing else to do with the muck but to build it into a bigger and bigger heap and then in the spring spread as much as one’s stamina would allow one to spread on the land. In Bruach the regularity of cleaning out the byre varied according to one’s attitude to the task. Because I liked it less than most of the other croft work and because I found it less strenuous to take out a few forkfuls at a time I cleaned out my byre daily. Others preferred to clean theirs weekly. A few made the job an annual one, arguing that since a good layer of muck generated heat the cattle were warmer in the byre and thus needed less feeding while the vet had once told me of an old crofter who hadn’t cleaned out his byre in fourteen years and when the vet went to attend his sick cow he had to climb up over a four-foot layer of dung to reach the animal.

  When the spring came and it was time for the dung to be spread the crofters usually carried it in full creels on their backs, tipping out the manure by bending forward and letting it spill out over their heads. I knew that if I tried their method I should certainly have manure in my hair and ears and at least half way down my back so I preferred the wheelbarrow. I had been forking manure into the barrow when Tearlaich passed by.

  ‘You’ll never use all that,’ he told me.

  ‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I haven’t the energy to get all that lot out anyway. It’s heavy work.’

  ‘Indeed an’ don’t I know that myself,’ agreed Tearlaich. ‘I believe the creel is a lot easier on you than than the barrow all the same.’

  ‘Maybe it is,’ I said. ‘But I still prefer the wheelbarrow.’

  ‘Right enough,’ he rejoined. ‘A load of shit on your back can get pretty hot, I’m tellin’ you. Even feelin’ it through your clothes makes you sweat.’ He watched me load until the barrow was as full as I could manage.

  ‘I believe Ian over yonder would take a load from you if you’ve a mind,’ he suggested. ‘It would likely be worth a pound to him.’

  ‘Really?’ The idea of actually selling one of the byproducts of my croft was, I thought, a step in the right direction but the idea of anyone actually wanting to buy manure struck me as strange: to come all the way from the next village to buy it sounded a little crazy. I wondered if Tearlaich was pulling my leg. ‘Will I tell him when I see him?’ he asked seriously.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I replied, going along with him. ‘If he likes to come for it he’s welcome to a load.’ I looked at him quizzically. ‘Has he a big croft that he needs extra manure?’ I enquired.

  ‘Aye he has three or maybe four crofts an’ a good few beasts but he outwinters them mostly so he doesn’t get the dung from them.’ He slanted a smile at me. ‘He’s one of you red-headed fellows they was speakin’ of at the ceilidh the other night, you mind?’

  ‘Oh, one of them!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Aye,’ responded Tearlaich. ‘It was Ian’s father, Red Alistair, that had the three red-headed sons an’ when a black-haired one came along he wouldn’t believe the babby was his. He wanted rid of it but then the mother turned round an’ told him the black-haired one was the only one he had fathered anyway.’

  ‘She must have had a penchant for red-headed men,’ I murmured.

  ‘Ach, as I mind it she didn’t much care about the colour of their hair,’ commented Tearlaich knowledgeably.

  ‘What happened eventually? Did he get a divorce?’

  ‘How would he do that when he’d never married her in the first place?’ asked Tearlaich reasonably.

  It was nearer autumn than spring when a red-haired man who already smelled strongly of dung turned up at my croft along with a horse and cart and reminded me that I had sent a message through Tearlaich back in the spring that he could get from me a load of ‘manyer’. I showed him the heap and when he had finished loading he came to the house and offered me a pound note that was so caked with dung it looked like used toilet paper. My reaction to dung fluctuated according to the seasons. In winter when I myself was literally wading in it as I cleaned out the byre and in spring when the whole village reeked with the spread dung the sight and the smell of it did not revolt me but in summer and autumn because dung was ‘entirely out of season’, the cattle being on the hill and the land having absorbed its mulch, I found myself recoiling if I so much as trod on an old cowpat. I overcame my slight reluctance to take the note in my hand, recalling how old Murdoch had washed his pound notes and hung them to dry on the clothes line after a low-flying gull had ‘spilled’ on them and I decided that I could follow his example.

  ‘You still have plenty dung,’ the red-haired Ian remarked enviously as he sat down to take the ‘strupak’ Highland hospitality demanded I give him. ‘You must be wantin’ to plant plenty potatoes come the spring.’ His voice came out in blobs like thick sauce from a bottle and his blue eyes regarded me with only a glint of laughter. Morag, entering the room at that moment, heard his remark. ‘Ach, Miss Peckwitt’s after wantin’ to grow all her food for herself. I believe she has a fancy for livin’ by herself on one of the un-rabbited islands out there.’

  ‘Is that so?’ enquired Ian.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind trying it some day,’ I told him, half seriously.

  ‘Indeed you might just as well be in your grave as on one of them places,’ he assured me. ‘It’s no place for a man to be on his own, never mind a lady,’ he went on.

  ‘Isn’t that what I’m after tellin’ her just,’ exclaimed Morag, and Ian, seeing from my expression that I remained unconvinced, continued. ‘An’ what if you get sick there? I’m tellin’ you,’ he warned, ‘in them places if whisky won’t cure you then you have to die just for there’s no help any place.’

  I laughed. ‘That settles it,’ I told him. ‘I’d welcome the one no more than the other.’

  He turned an incredulous glance on Morag who nodded sad confirmation of my heresy and quickly changed the subject by asking after his wife.

  ‘It’s fine,’ he replied. ‘It’s away to Glasgow next week to see its cousin.’ I glanced at him in surprise. The Gaelic has no neuter and ‘it’ was seldom used by the Bruachites even when speaking English. I wondered where Ian had acquired the habit. He rose. ‘Aye, well, I’d best be away. She’ll be tired of waitin’, likely.’

  When he had gone I looked questioningly at Morag. Does he usually refer to his wife as “It”,’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t believe I’ve heard him ever call her anythin’ but that,’ she replied. ‘An’ I’m tellin’ you, mo ghaoil, I doubt it’s no so bad as some of the names he heard his own father call his mother.’

  ‘Well, he did remember she was a “she”: when he said she would be tired of waiting for him,’ I reminded her.

  ‘Indeed no, mo ghaoil,’ she was quick to tell
me. ‘That was his horse he was speakin’ of.’ She picked up a magazine and flicked through its pages, asking would she ‘get a read of it’ when I had finished with it. I promised her she would. Then she said, ‘What I came for rightly was to know when Erchy is to build your winter cock for you.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ I replied. ‘At least he said he’d come tomorrow if the weather holds but knowing Erchy.…’ My voice trailed off and I shrugged my shoulders.

  ‘If he comes then myself will give you a hand if the Lord spares me,’ she vowed. ‘That way we might get her finished before the rain is on again.’

  Although it was now October my hay was not yet stacked for the winter but still stood in cocks ready, when the weather was fine enough, to be opened up, shaken out and built into the big stack from which every day throughout the winter I would pull the hay in handfuls until I had sufficient to fill a sack. A winter stack needed to be as sturdy as a house and the prerequisite for that was a skilful builder plus at least one other helper to throw up the hay. In the shortening autumn days it was almost imperative to have yet another helper to spread the hay so as to give it its final airing before it was packed into what Morag called ‘the winter cock’ and I was indeed grateful for her offer of help. That night when I returned from shutting up the hen house the land and the sea were quiet and still and I looked anxiously out across the bay where a trace of orange sunset lingered pinched between the horizon and a sky which was already studded with frost-kindled stars. It looked to me as if the weather would hold for tomorrow and I prayed that Erchy would keep his promise. The building of winter stacks of hay and corn was very nearly the climax of the year’s toil. Only the clamping of the potatoes and the salting of the herring remained to be done before the winter closed in and I was eager to see my hay secured. I grew only a small amount of corn and between us Morag and I had managed to build the corn stack, but the hay was not only more abundant, it was more necessary. Corn was only a supplement and one’s cattle could survive without it; they would be unlikely to survive without hay.

  The morning dawned calm and cold but by ten o’clock a light frost which had brushed the grass was dispersed by mellow sunlight that poured over the crofts like melted butter. At eleven o’clock which, Erchy maintained, because of the dew was the earliest it was safe to start work, he arrived and after quickly estimating the quantity of hay he began to prepare the base for the stack using for this the damp caps of dry grass which Morag and I had already lifted from the cocks. The base is of paramount importance since it predetermines the shape of the finished stack. If the diameter is too wide for the amount of hay to be built upon it then it will be too squat to shed the rain; if it is too narrow it will be high and unstable. Once he was satisfied with the proportions of the base Erchy climbed on to it and standing in the centre called: ‘Ready now!’ The real work began. Working round and round the stack Morag threw him forkfuls of hay which he spread and continuously trod down while I brought up supplies of hay from the surrounding cocks, fluffing it up in a circle round the stack not only so that it would sweeten in the sunshine but because I had been warned that it was essential no lumps of hay should be built into the stack.

  There is something deeply satisfying about working in the hay particularly when it is wild, leafy, sweet smelling hay such as we made in Bruach and my satisfaction was enhanced by the fact that I was working to the accompaniment of rippling Gaelic voices backed by the trilling of the sea; the excited cries of gulls proclaiming their discovery of autumn herring; the barking of rutting stags echoing from the hills; the investigative ‘tlonks’ of ravens and the delighted mewing of buzzards as both young and adult birds soared and planed in celebration of their autumn reunion. It seemed to me that there was joy all around us; on the land, on the sea and in the air and though after hours of continuous work my arms and shoulders were aching and I felt that I was labouring in a stupour of raking and shaking and forking I knew myself to be exquisitely content. Erchy’s glossy red face rose above us as my stack climbed higher and higher and the number of small cocks diminished. It would not be long now, I was telling myself.

  Morag said, ‘I’m thinkin’ the rain’s no far away.’ I turned to look at her askance as she dug her hayfork into the ground and held on to it with both hands as if for support while she scanned the sea.

  ‘Oh, no!’ I protested. Everything had been going so well that I had been too absorbed to perceive how the sun had paled at the approach of an army of dark clouds which were massing over the outer islands. Now as I paused I could see the treachery in the sky and feel the breeze renewing its strength.

  ‘You’d best not open up any more of those cocks,’ Erchy warned. ‘We’ll maybe have time to finish what we have spread just before she’ll be here.’ I felt myself sagging with tiredness. The stack was two-thirds built and if only the weather had lived up to its early morning promise I would have been able to go to bed blissful in the knowledge that my hay was secure for the winter. But when the rain came and there was no doubting now that it was being pushed closer and closer by the wind I would have to revert once more to staying constantly attuned to the portents of the sky; to trying to anticipate the attempts of the wind to destroy my haycocks and to trying to steal a march on the frequent squalls while I waited for the promise of another fine day which would coincide with Erchy’s availability and inclination to complete the stack building. As the first splodgy raindrops fell coldly on our tingling arms and faces we pulled the tarpaulin over the top of the unfinished stack, weighted it down with boulders tied to the corners, and as I leaned my fork and rake against the wall of the barn I thought that even the prospect of a respite from work was little solace for my disappointment at not seeing the job completed. The rain brought an early twilight and we returned to the house for a meal of rabbit casserole which had been keeping warm in the oven. In the lamplight I saw that Morag’s face looked drawn and tired and I was ashamed of having allowed her to work so hard. Physically her job had been the most demanding but both she and Erchy had insisted that it was she who must throw up the hay since on a croft even the most simple looking tasks required a degree of expertise and neither of them considered me skilful enough to do the job. ‘Not without I’d be havin’ to swear at you, an’ I wouldn’t want to do that,’ Erchy explained.

  ‘You’ll have plenty hay this winter,’ said Morag. ‘Even supposin’ you don’t get any more of it into the stack you’ll do well enough.’

  ‘Unless she buys in another beast,’ suggested Erchy. They looked at me as if expecting an answer.

  ‘Yes, I have thought of that,’ I admitted. There was a subsidy on cows and since my croft had yielded well I thought I might just as well draw two lots of subsidy as one. ‘Have you heard of anyone who’s thinking of selling a good cow?’ I asked them.

  ‘Ach, you shouldn’t be thinkin’ of buyin’ in a cow,’ Erchy told me. ‘You’d be best to get a calf an’ rear it yourself.’

  ‘And where will I get a calf at this time of year?’ I put to them. They shook their heads and murmured dubiously.

  ‘It’s a pity yon fellow they used to call the “black drover” isn’t still alive,’ said Erchy.

  ‘Did he have good calves?’ I asked.

  ‘He’d give any woman that went to bed with him a good calf,’ returned Erchy. ‘An’ they were the best, too. He’d make sure of that.’

  ‘Whis!’ Morag chided him. ‘Miss Peckwitt doesn’t want to be told things like that.’

  ‘Why not?’ demanded Erchy. ‘He’s dead now so she’s too damty late anyway.’

  ‘Ach, you’re a terrible man for the lies,’ she told him.

  ‘It’s no lie indeed,’ began Erchy but Morag silenced him with an arrogantly lifted hand. I glimpsed the trace of a smile touching Erchy’s mouth as he fixed his attention on a ceiling beam immediately above his head. We heard the drone of an engine which ceased outside the house.

  ‘That’s the nurse surely,’ said Morag. In Bruach, except in summer w
hen the tourists poured into the village, one could identify engine noises as being that of the bus, the grocery van or the nurse’s car and since it was not time for the bus and not the right day of the week for the grocery van to come then it needed little reasoning to know that the only remaining probability was the nurse’s car. A few moments later the nurse bounced into the kitchen. Unlike the Bruachites she, being no Highlander, professed always to be in a hurry.

  ‘I mustn’t stay,’ she announced with practised breathlessness, ‘but I just wanted to ask you if you’re going to this dance Flora’s on about. I said I’d find out for her how many were going and what I was thinking was if you’d like to go as a nurse you could borrow one of my uniforms.’ Her eyes went wistfully to the table where there was a plate of small iced cakes and another of sliced bunloaf.

  ‘Surely you have time to take a strupak,’ I invited.

  ‘It looks so tempting,’ she confessed and promptly sat down beside Erchy. ‘I’ll just take a cup in my hand.’

  Erchy pushed the plate of cakes towards her. ‘Take one seein’ this is what you came for anyway,’ he teased. She blinked away a coy smile as she took a cake.