The man said to my brother Sandy, ‘You’ll no be shiftin the day. You cannae take yir tent doon wi that rain, laddie.’ The man would have been in his forties.
‘Ach well,’ Sandy said, ‘the weans are needin a rest onyway. They’ve had a lang step fae Inveraray. I’d be as well tae bide the day till the rain fairs up onyway.’
Betsy and the woman hawked the houses, sellt their flowers and got as much as they could get. Whatever kind o coppers they got they bought some messages. But there was no bread or milk in thon wee village, so when they came back the laddie came up to me.
He said, ‘I want to go to the shop tae Comrie. For something for my mother. Are ye wantin anything fae the toon?’ he says to Betsy.
She said, ‘Aye, laddie, get me a pint o milk and a packet o fags.’
He said to me, ‘You comin wi me?’
‘I’ll go wi ye,’ I said. ‘Is it far to the toon?’
He said, ‘It’s only aboot five mile.’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘that’s a lang walk.’
‘Ah but, I’m no gaunna walk the five mile.’ he said, ‘I’m takin the wee pony, the wee yoke.’ He was a laddie about fourteen. He went over and pulled this float out, like a big barrow with rubber wheels on. In below on the axle was this set of harness, the loveliest wee set ever I’d seen. You could lift them in your hand. And a wee collar and hems on it. I’m looking all around for this pony, couldn’t see it. He went over the back of the bushes where there was a bit of green grass, and he took up this pony. I wish to God you’d seen it! I guarantee it was no more than twelve hands high, fat as a wee pig. But the colour of it, like a piece of coal, as if it was cut out of coal, and its mane and tail were near hanging on the ground. It was bottle black, shiny like a craw’s wing.
I said, ‘I’ve never seen a pony like that in my life!’
He said, ‘That’s what you call a Shetland pony.’ Its wee hooves were polished like black oak.
I said, ‘Can you manage to drive it, can you work it all right?’
‘Ach, I can work it all right,’ he said. His father never even looked the road he was on. It was just as if he was going on a bike. In two minutes he put the saddle on its back, and on with the collar, the bridle, bit in its mouth, buckled on the reins, pulled up the wee float, backed it in. He put on the traces for clicking onto the cart, fastened the breeching straps. He says to me, ‘Jump up on the other side!’
So he jumped up on one side, I jumped up on the other. And he pulled the reins, and this wee thing set off along the road. I wish you’d seen it go! I’m tellin’ ye, its wee mane and tail was flying in the wind. You couldn’t see its feet! They were no sooner down to the ground when they were back up again. It was just like playing a rhythm with drumsticks, on a drum with its feet. Round the corners and bends as fast as you could go – I was feart it would fall. But no! The wee laddie’s sitting holding the reins as if they didn’t exist. It wouldn’t bother about motors or anything. He drove right into Comrie and pulled up at this shop.
He says to me, ‘You comin into the shop?’
I said, ‘No, I’m no goin into the shop.’ He looked at me as if I had done something wrong. I said, ‘I’ll watch your pony.’
‘Ach, dinnae worry about hit. It’ll stand itsel,’ he said, ‘stand there all day if I want it to.’
Now I noticed these big windows and fruit and everything. They were different from the wee shops I had been reared with. I told him, ‘This is a guid lump o place.’
He said, ‘This is no a big place at aa. This is only a wee village. You want to see Perth or Dundee. That is a real big toon.’
I said, ‘You been in these toons?’
He said, ‘I’ve been in them aa. I’ve been in Inverness, Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth – in them aa with my faither. I like to go with my faither to the markets, to the horse markets.’
I said, ‘Horse markets?’
‘Aye,’ he says, ‘Where the folk sell and buy the horses. But are ye no comin in?’
‘No, I’m no goin into the shop,’ I said. Now he wondered at me. Because if traveller weans, suppose they’ve only got a penny to spend, they’ll go into a shop just for the sake of getting a look around. Suppose they never buy anything. Curious to see what’s inside the shop.
‘Oh well,’ he said. But he wasn’t long in, about five minutes. He came out with a wee box of milk and bread and things, put it in the back of the float. Whirled the pony around on the main street and it set off like a shot from a gun, back up the other side of the road the way we came. Ah, it was no time till we were back home. It wasn’t late in the day, no more than three o’clock. So we had something to eat, some tea.
And the traveller man says to my brother, ‘Come on, we’ll go and have a game of quoits. Me and my laddie will play you and your brother as partners.’
I said, ‘I cannae play quoits.’ I’d heard about quoits, but never played.
‘Aye, ye’ll soon learn,’ the man says to me. Away they go to a burn. And they pick these flat stones, about a pound weight. Brother picks two and the man picks two. They chip them, make them all nice and round. Later I met travellers who carried their own stones with them from place to place, to play quoits. So, they step out twenty-five paces and they stick a stick in the ground, and a tin on this stick. They do the same at the other end of the pitch, a tin on a stick.
Now my brother and the traveller man stand at one end, and the wee laddie and I stand at the other. You’ve got to fling these stones underhand, as if you are playing cricket. If you hit the tin you get three points. If you put it in close to the tin, you get one point. Or if you can get two close to the tin, you get two points. The game is ‘twenty-one’. You change sides at twelve. They who get the first twenty-one are the winner of the game.
So, it was the two men’s turn to start off. Now my brother and the traveller man had played quoits before. And they were out to give me and the wee laddie a lickin – show us how good they were. So they did! Because I couldn’t play it any! I couldn’t get the idea, how to fling the stane, to get the tin or fall near it. So the wee laddie showed me. ‘Fling it this way,’ he said. Oh, and he must have got a good score his ownself. By the time he got eleven or twelve, I got nothing. They won the twenty-one. They played two or three games. I was lost. I shamed my brother Sandy. My father could play quoits but he never played with us, no. I had never seen it played before, but I kent all about it with folk cracking about the game. I was to play it many, many times later on in years to come. I saw traveller men down on their knees and measuring with a wee straw to get one extra inch just for the sake of the game. I saw one traveller man near tears, greetin because he got beat at quoits, at Cupar at the berries one time.
So the rain began to kind of smoor off,11 and ach, we got fed up playing. It was a one-sided battle. I couldn’t help him much. But me and this wee laddie, we got to be awful good friends. He said, ‘Come on, we’ll go and shift the pony tae a bit green grass.’
I said, ‘That’s a bonnie wee pony you’ve got.’
‘Ach aye,’ he said, ‘it’s all right. But it’s too wee. It does for my wee brother gettin a hurl along the road and my mother sometimes when she gets tired. But me and my father cannae get a hurl, cannae sit up and drive on when we want to, come to a waste road. I like the big horses the best.’
I said, ‘If I had that wee horse I would never part wi it.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘you would think too much o it! But I cannae dae that. If I thought too much o that wee horse and came to like it too much, and my father kent that, my father wouldnae gie it awa. He would be only torturin hissel, because we couldnae keep two horses. He’d need to get another big ane, and we couldnae keep two. So I just work it for him, treat it to the best and like it . . . I like every horse.’
I said, ‘So div I. I like every horse. How long have you been among horses?’
He said, ‘I dinnae mind when my father hadnae got a horse. I cannae mind. Sometimes he swaps and deals, and so
metimes we’ve got three different horses in the same week. He never keeps them very long. But he’d never be withoot ane. He always gets ane before he puts ane away. Probably the next travellers we meet, he’ll probably swap this ane awa and get another ane. That’s the way it goes on. But it’ll soon be the market in Perth. And we’ll probably go up the length o Crianlarich and back doon in by Callander, and back roon in by Perth.’ That was the way they went. ‘And if somebody doesn’t get it on the way, he’ll probably take it into Perth and swap it awa.’
The rain kind o faired up. And we all went for a bundle o sticks apiece. That’s one thing I could dae. I hadnae sense o much else, but I was sensible enough to get sticks. So we climbed across the road. And me and him got to be good friends.
He said, ‘I wish to God my father would turn back wi yese and go back by Perth, but he’ll no do that. We’ve just come up that way. So if you’re makin doon that way, you’ll probably see traivellers. You’ll have to go through Perth, the way you’re brother’s gaun tae get to Scone and Balbeggie.’ He kent all the roads! He was only fourteen tae.
I said, ‘My brother Sandy was tellin me there are a lot of horses at the berries.’
‘Oh, the berries,’ he said, ‘see, we never miss the berries. We always go, my father goes to the berries every year.’
I said, ‘Do you mak a lot of money?’
‘Nah,’ he said, ‘we never do. But it’s good fun, plenty laddies, lassies, and folk like yirsel to play wi. My faither has plenty o folk tae crack tae, and he gets plenty swappin and dealin. We aye make a few shillings, the four o us pickin.’
So we sat and cracked till well on tae night-time, cracking about everything under the sun. They start speaking about burkers and about ghost-haunted places they’d camped in. And old David Johnstone, he was a great old cracker, great crackin man. He was telling my brother about the haunted camps, things he heard he could never explain. His wife was awfae quiet, an awfae quiet woman. She and Betsy got on fine. So while we were sitting cracking, Betsy was busy sitting making the flowers from crêpe. She bought paper every day. Whenever she sellt her flowers and got two-three shillings together, the first thing she did, go into the shop and buy a packet o fags and three packets o paper. It was only six pence for a big roll. Sandy had made her an oval basket for holding her flowers. Charlie and Susie were in bed. We cracked on to twelve o’clock at night. I didn’t say much because I was feart o embarrassing Sandy wi speakin about things I didnae ken very much aboot. He was a bit fly for it the next day on the road. It must have been late when we went to bed. But the rain faired up.
The next morning we packed up and had our breakfast. By the time we had got up, the man had his tent down, his wee float packed all nice and tidy and the green cover folded over the top. You couldn’t see a thing under it. And he’d gathered up the two or three stones holding down the cover for his tent. Oh, clean, tidy-goin folk they were. And the wee horse was standing with the harness on it. But he wouldn’t move till he saw us packed up too. So we packed up this pram thing that Sandy had, and we pulled out on the road. We spoke for a few minutes and bade each other ‘good morning’.
The man led his wee pony and his two laddies said, ‘Cheerio, we’ll see you again sometime.’ They went away up by Lochearnhead and we travelled on right down to Comrie.
Sandy says, ‘What do you think o this big toon?’
I said, ‘It’s a good size.’
‘Aye, it’s bigger than Furnace anyway,’ he says to me.
I said, ‘Aye, it’s bigger than Furnace.’
So the shops in these towns were awful good in these days. Especially a butcher’s. They didn’t have fridges or anything to keep food. And you could go with a sixpence into a butcher, just tell the man to give you something for that amount. You could get big lumps of beef, and any shop would give you a big lump o ham end for tuppence or thruppence. And I was very good at this, ‘pitchin the fork’ they called it. I wasn’t embarrassed in this way, no. Because I’d done it all my days for my father and mother when I was back home. With just about a shilling I was through the shops in two minutes. Asking the woman for a bit ham end to make a drop soup. And into the butcher’s and the baker’s, telling the woman – did she hae any stale cakes or anything she didna need. You could get a big box full. So, we had plenty to eat. But we travelled on.
I said, ‘Hae we far to go tonight?’
‘Well,’ Sandy said, there’s a wee camp we call Monzievaird doon here. And it’s your chance tonight to get the rabbits for the pot.’ Sandy had to have rabbits every night. He says, ‘It’s hivin with rabbits!’
Now Jackie, the dog, Sandy always kept on a chain all day and kept him tied to the side o the pram, the side o the road. Jackie. And he had a white chest. He was a good old dog. After we got our tent up at Monzievaird – it was a wee layby off the roadside – got some sticks and water for Betsy, made our tea, he says, ‘Come on brother, we’ll take a walk and get a rabbit for the pot.’ Sandy just killed them and skinned them right away, when they were warm. That’s what he did, and put them in the pot right away. He gutted them as soon as the dog killed them.
He said, ‘I dinnae like the mothers. I like the halflings.’ If he got a milker, he flung it away. Even if they were young he wouldn’t use them. But getting on to the end o April there were wee halfling rabbits. He says, ‘We’ll no kill very many, two or three’ll dae us for the pot.’ He used to pull them, skin them and wash them, pop them in the pot, tatties and neeps in with them. Make a good pot o slutter. And what we didn’t eat at night we had for breakfast the morn.
We went away over the back of this place, and what rose but a hare, a broon hare, a halfling. Now it takes a good dog to kill a halfgrown hare. But Jackie was only about three years old and there never was a halfling hare that rose that he couldnae kill! I’d never seen a broon hare before. White ones with the black ears, mountain hares, I’d caught plenty o them. So Jackie carried it back.
I said, ‘What’s that he got?
‘Brother,’ he says, ‘that’s a marlech. That’ll dae, that’s enough.’ We brought it back. ‘Ach,’ he says to me, ‘these things cannae run. Ony dog can catch them.’ He was pulling my leg. That night he cooked the hare and we had a good supper. We sat and cracked all night. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘tomorrow morning we’ll push on. You’ll see the real big farms fae noo on. We’re makin on tae the borders o Crieff.’
But just before you go to Crieff there’s a big field at the roadside. And sitting in the middle of the field was a broon hare, a big one. As we were walking along Sandy said, ‘Thon there’s a hare, brother! Brother, I bet you a pound you could catch thon nae bother! You could catch thon nae bother yirsel, never mind a dog. They cannae run very fast.’
It never really bothered me very much, the tricks my brother played on me. Because I knew in my own mind he was trying to educate me the best possible way. By another field he told me there were ducks, and that I should go and catch some.
He said, ‘Brother, you’d better go and see if you can get a couple of those ducks for the pot.’ When I landed in the field it was turnips the farmers had put out to the sheep. I had never seen farmers putting turnips out in the fields. And they really did look like ducks to me. It was me who suggested they were birds. Back where I was born and reared, if a farmer had two-three drills o turnips, they put them in a shed, never spread them through the fields. But anyway, Sandy just laughed and I took it all in fun.
Now he says to me, ‘Brother, you must remember, you will meet a lot of travellers going into Perth.’
I said, ‘How far is it to Perth?’
‘Well,’ he says, ‘we’ll have to go to Crieff, and frae there it’s about seventeen miles to Perth. We’ll have a couple of stops along the way and we’ll probably make it by the weekend.’
I said, ‘Is there any place we can stay there?’
‘Well,’ he says, ‘we’ll have to go through the town and find a place to stay on the other side.’
We came to the other side o Crieff and he said, ‘Brother, there’s an auld road here – we can stay for the night.’ The camp was called ‘Cat’s Corner’.
I said, ‘Right.’
So he says, ‘Are you wantin to stay with Betsy and sell some flooers, or do you want to go on and help me with the camp?’
I said, ‘You can manage yirsel. Put up the camp. What’s the sense o me goin on wi you?’ He had his camp sticks tied on the barrow in case he came to a place where there were none. I said ‘You go and put the tent up on the auld road wherever you can. Kindle the fire and boil the kettle and I’ll go and help Betsy.’ Betsy knew the road. I didnae. This is my first time in Crieff.
The night before we had made these paper flowers and we had gone up to this house, asked an old woman for the privet.
On the hedges, these beautiful long stems o green. Betsy had her flowers in a cardboard box. The woman had said, ‘Oh, help yirsel to some privet!’ So I’d broken the long thin stems and Betsy twisted the wee bit copper wire that held the flower together onto the privet. I had told her, ‘I dinnae want all the one colour.’ We had about three dozen o paper flowers. And at six pence each that was eighteen shillings. In Crieff in these days for eighteen shillings you could have bought as much food that would do you for a week.
The Horsieman Page 9