The Horsieman

by Ducan Williamson

  I said to Betsy, ‘Gie me a dozen and a half, and you take a dozen and a half.’ I remember it just like yesterday. It was yellow and red flowers she had. And they were beautiful! I never saw a person in my life who could really make flowers like Betsy. Now I said to her, ‘I dinnae want to loss ye. I want to keep wi ye. So instead o goin up the main street, we’ll take the back street.’ She went to one door and I went across the street. I kept my eye on her so’s I couldn’t lose her, because this was strange to me. Betsy was a very queer kind o person, very soft spoken, very quiet.

  She just went to the woman and asked, ‘You needin any flowers?’

  And the woman said, ‘Well . . .’

  She said, ‘They’re made o paper, you know, and . . .

  Betsy hadn’t got the idea o the ‘go’. See, I could see this. It was up to the woman whether she bought them or no. Betsy never persevered. I went to this other woman. An old lady her hair full o curlers. And her garden was full o beautiful flowers. I knocked at the door. I always went to the back door, never to the front. I went down three steps into this old-fashioned house in Crieff, up the back road just before you go to the high road. And this old woman came out to me.

  ‘What is it?’ she said.

  ‘Well madam,’ I said, ‘you needin any flowers?’

  She said, ‘Did you come up by my garden?’

  I said, ‘I did.’

  ‘And did you see all these flowers growin in my garden?’

  I said, ‘Yes madam, I did.’

  And she said, ‘Aren’t they beautiful?’

  I said, ‘Yes, they’re beautiful. But they’re no paper flowers, madam. Your flowers are real, but mines is made o paper.’

  She says, ‘Don’t go and tell me that!’ This is the truth now, I’m no tellin you a lie. ‘Don’t you tell me that!’ she says to me.

  I said, ‘Yes, my dear, ma’m, they’re paper flowers. And I’m sellin them, me and my sister-in-law. We’re just on the road, we’re travelling people, and this is what we do. From town to town. We cam away up from Argyll.’

  ‘How far did you come from?’ she said.

  I said, ‘From Inveraray.’

  ‘Oh, I know Inveraray well!’ she said. ‘What do you charge for them?’

  I said, ‘Six pence each.’ She hemmed and hawed12 for a while.

  ‘Well,’ she says. ‘Give me half a dozen.’ So I gave her half a dozen. And in twenty minutes my flowers were gone. I sellt them nae bother. So, I had nane left: two or three more houses and a woman took two, another woman took three, another took two or three. They always took two, never less. So I came across to Betsy.

  I said, ‘Gie me another two-three flooers.’

  She said, ‘How’d you get on?’

  I said, ‘Look, they’re all gone. I got on fine.’ Anyway we sellt our flowers. But to make a long story short, I said, ‘There you are, get me a packet o Woodbine.’ Tenpence-halfpenny for twenty Woodbine. That was all I wanted. I didnae need anything else.

  So she went into the shop and got her messages, and she said, ‘It’s a good wee bit doon this auld road.’

  So down we go to the old road. When we landed, Sandy had the tent up and the fire going, and he had the kettle boiling. Well, it wasn’t a kettle, it was a can. Sometimes he put on the pot for tea. Whatever was cleanest he used. If the can was too dirty, needed scoured out, he would use the pot. Tea out o the soup pot. If it was clean they would put it on and boil some tea. When the can got too dirty with making tea too much in it, travellers always took it to the river and scrubbed it with sand to make it clean.

  So he says to me, ‘How did you get on, brother?’

  I said, ‘Oh, I got on fine. I had a great day. Flowers, I could sell flowers for evermore!’ This was really fun to me because I had never done this in my life before I’d set out with them.

  ‘Well,’ he says, ‘we’ll stay the night here and tomorrow we’ll go to Perth. Now there’s not a camp between here and Perth we can stay on, and it’ll probably be late. But we’re goin right through Perth. I know all the back roads. I want to get pushin on, I want to go tae Balbeggie.’ This farm was the other side of Scone and wanted to get there as soon as possible. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘you’ll be meetin up wi yir ain folk shortly. Aa yir freends.’

  I said, ‘I’ve got nae freends – aa ma freends is back hame in Argyllshire.’

  ‘Aye, I bet ye,’ he said, ‘tomorrow ye’ll see all yir freends when ye get to Perth.’

  But I had noticed that the place I was born in, Argyllshire, was a different kind of country, a different world from this country – this was Perthshire. There were farms, fields for evermore. And the haystacks were like ones I’d never seen before. Corn stacks in hundreds sitting along the roadsides. And horses, big Clydesdales running in the fields. I had stopped with the pram when I came to a field, because the farmers had maybe fifteen and twenty horses in the place. Sandy had told me the ones running and used in the field one day were given a rest the next day. And they used the other ones. I had stopped to admire these horses.

  Sandy would say, ‘Horses! You’re moich on horses.’

  I said, ‘Of course I am.’

  He said, ‘You’ll see plenty horses before you lea Perthshire and Forfarshire.’ Now he was going to take me to Forfar to the farm where he used to work for years and years. So, we sat and we cracked all night. He was telling me about Perthshire and about other travellers. Telling me how to behave myself and not get into any trouble. He was trying to educate me. But he never played any more tricks on me!

  The next day we got up early. I always got up first, kindled the fire, made some tea. I used to lie in the front o his camp at the front o his door. We just made a bed o straw and covered it up wi a bit cover. The next morning we just packed up the tent, set fire to the straw and the place was as clean as the day we came. That’s an overnight short stay. There were no more travellers on the old road that night, not a soul.

  The funny thing was, you could tell . . . travellers were a queer race o people. I mean, when you came to a camping place, suppose it was empty and not a soul on it, the travellers could read the camping place. They knew who had been there! You think this is hard to believe, but this is truth. There were people who were clean and tidy, and people who left a mess. People who built their tents in such different kinds o manner. And you got accustomed to this. My brother would say to me, ‘There’s naebody here but there were somebody here about three days ago. I know who they were.’

  I said, ‘How do you ken who they were?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I ken hoo, the way they built their fire and hoo they had their tent, how they shaped their tent, how they cleaned up their tent.’ He measured the holes, he would ken by the way they put their sticks in the ground if they were original, good travellers who carried their sticks. Or somebody who just cut sticks for the night, ken what I mean. Travellers could read all these things. They were like Indians! And Sandy would ken if the travellers had two tents and a big fire in the middle.

  He would say, ‘Well, there was a couple here. It was just a couple and a couple o wee weans.’

  I said, ‘Brother, how in the world do you ken these things?’

  ‘Well, he said, ‘look, there’s the mark o one bow tent and one wee fire. Look across frae that fire – if that had been a crowd o folk there’d be another tent on the other side and a mark o that other tent. There’d hae been a great big monster fire in the centre. It was only one family that was here. Now they didnae have no horses.’

  I said, ‘How do you ken?’

  ‘Well,’ he says, ‘the grass is no etten up the roadside and there nae mark of horse’s dung, and there nae place where the horse was tied. Or, they didna hae a dog.’ He even kent this!

  I said, ‘How do you ken?’

  ‘Well, if they had a dog,’ he said, ‘you would see a bit fur or a rabbit skin lyin aboot where the dog was playin or something the dog was playin wi.’ He kent that.

  I
said, ‘That’s queer to me, how these people learns these things.’ But I was learning anyway.

  So next day we pushed on and we travelled all day. Now it was all downhill. We had gone over the mountains. It was level going. We came into Methven and we sellt some flowers. Sandy went out with his pram and he waited at the end of the village. He never kindled a fire. We took the kettle with us, sellt some flowers and Betsy got some things in the shop. I mind Betsy made a kettle of tea along the roadside – it was what you call a short stop. She’d just put some tea and sugar in the kettle and went to some house, got hot water in it. Saved us from kindling a fire. We travelled on, and by four o’clock we reached Perth.

  Now my brother spoke a lot of cant. Sandy was a great man for the cant and he taught me a lot of the language. He spoke it to me suppose there was nobody around. I mind his words, God rest his soul, he says to me, ‘Brother, this is a big gav’ (meaning a big town). ‘And we’ll have tae get through it before it gets too late.’ It was the end of April. ‘Not only that, we’ve a good bit to go through the gav tae the other end, about six mile on the other end o Perth before we get a place for the night.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘You’re walkin.’

  ‘Aye,’ he says, ‘I know I’m walkin. I’ll push, and never mind, I’ll push the pram. So I’ll take you all the back ways through the toon.’ He knew Perth very well. And he made his way round the cobble streets, round this way, back this way. It was strange to me. I was seeing all these people and all these people were looking at us. But I didnae feel nae shame or nae embarrassment in any way. There were hundreds o people in the streets we went through. And on the cobbles the old pram was doubling, reetle-rattle, the wheels o the pram were liltin. Charlie and Susan were sitting on the pram. They were just wee toddlers. The rattle o this old pram going through the streets, and dog Jackie tied to the handle – anyway we made wir way through Perth.

  Sandy says to Betsy, ‘Dinnae stay in the toon. Come on wi us, come straight through. And we’ll make our way to the campin place.’ So we travelled on right through Perth, over the bridge, the river. Biggest river I ever saw in my life. I stood on the top of the bridge and looked down on the top o the banking.

  He says to me, ‘That’s the River Tay. That comes from the mountains, from Loch Tay near where we cam doon.’ I was used with wee totie burns away back in Argyllshire. You could stand across them. I was wanting to watch this beautiful river a wee while, but Sandy wouldn’t let me. He says, ‘Come on, we’ve a good bit to go!’

  We travelled on and to the other end o Perth on the Scone side. The road said ‘Blairgowrie’. He took this road and Sandy said, ‘I’m going out to a wee place they call the Knock Camp. There’s an old road, and there’ll prob’ly be traivellers, cousins o yir ain. This is a great camp wi yir cousin, yir uncle’s laddie.’

  I said, ‘I’ve never seen my uncle.’

  ‘No,’ Sandy said, ‘you’ll no see him. He’s dead and buried. He died when the war started. But there two laddies and two lassies, and they stay wi their mother. If yir cousin is anywhere aboot Perth, this is where he’ll stay. Perth is where they haud the market, the horse market. It’s Monday morning.’ In these days it was every Monday, and this was Friday. ‘There’ll be a big market. When it starts the traivellers come fae all parts and all over! Some of them are on the road frae Friday night makin their way fae Aberfeldy, fae Dunkeld to catch this market. This is where they dae their dealin and their swappin, where they change their horses.’

  ‘Brother, how do you no bother wi a horse?’ I said. It’d be awfae easy . . . what about that family we seen away back there at St Fillans. Look how easy they went!’

  He says to me, ‘Brother, what was I goin tae do wi a horse? Look, I never had a horse and I’ll never hae one. I like to work and when I gae oot workin in the one place I work all day, come home at night. And I like to read my paper, fill my coupons. I would forget aboot it. It would prob’ly dee wi hunger. I wouldnae even look after it.’

  ‘Ah well,’ I said, ‘every man to his own. But I’ll tell ye something, if I ever get married and get a wife, I’ll never hae nae barras like that. I’ll have a horse.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you keep on the way you’re daein, you’ll get a horse! Go to Blairgowrie, go to the berries, You’ll prob’ly get a horse and get a woman an aa alang wi it!’

  ‘They tell me how great . . . about these Blairgowrie berries,’ I said. ‘What’s so good about it?’

  ‘Well,’ he says, ‘the traivellers comes fae all over the world, all over Scotland to the berries. This is where they see each other and where they swap. They deal and they swap, they trade and dae everything under the sun. They see each other for wonst a year. Probably a man losses his wife. There probably a woman gets a man or a man gets a woman. Dinnae believe they just change horses! I’ve seen many’s a poor man loss in his wife at the berries. Many’s a wife lossin her man at the berries as well as their horses.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said. I didnae believe him. But it was true. He was telling me the truth.

  ‘And it’s fine for the young anes,’ he says, ‘tae get in among their ain folk. There fights and there quarrels tae forbyes. And it’s a dangerous place. Ye could get yirsel killt! You could get yirsel robbed, you could get yirsel stabbed to death. You could get a good horse or you could get a bad ane. But it’s up to yirsel. I’m only tellin ye tae look out. But anyway . . .’ This is the cracks Sandy tellt me walkin along the road to pass the time.

  And Betsy, she’s walking away behind smoking the fags. She smoked all day, she smoked nonstop. And she had this red hair away doon her back! She was a beautiful woman, beautiful when she was young. She wore this red hair and tied it with a ribbon at the back. But she was very soft spoken. She was Highland spoken and she was one of the greatest singers you ever heard in your life. Oh, she could sing like a bird! She sang everything under the sun, old Granny’s songs, old ballads and old things that she . . . see, to go back a wee bit.

  Sandy and Betsy were full cousins: Betsy’s mother was my father’s sister, and Betsy’s father was my mother’s brother. Well, my mother’s brother was called up; he joined the Army in 1914 and was only eighteen years of age. He left his wife with one wee baby, only a year old. He joined up from Campbeltown in Kintyre. After his training he was taken to France, and he only landed in France when he was killed. Now, Betsy’s mother was only a young lassie. She had a wee baby and her man was killed in action. To this day you can see his name on the stone in Furnace where I was born – Charles Townsley. A brother of my mother’s. So Betsy’s mother married again. But the old granny, my granny and my grandfather who took care o the baby when her father was killed in France, wouldnae let the child go wi the mother when she married again.

  And the mother and father say to her, ‘If you’re goin to go wi another man, right, you’re no gettin the baby.’

  So Granny and Grandfather, they thought so much of the baby, they kept Betsy. Betsy was reared with them and they put her to school, taught her everything. And not only that – they had another two sisters there in Tarbert who had lost their husbands years before – my two aunties who stayed with their father and mother forbyes. Nellie and old Jeannie. They too loved the wee lassie. She was a wee totie lassie, two years old, and they wouldnae part with Betsy when her mother remarried. And everybody had to bring Betsy back something every day from the village. They only had to walk a short distance where they stayed in Tarbert. And they were well known, you know. He was old Willie Williamson, Uillium MacUillium, that’s what they called him. And he spoke the Gaelic. He mended the floats for the fishermen’s nets and he was a tinsmith. And he was a mushfeeker, a champion umbrella mender. He stayed on the rubbish tip and took care o the tip for thirty-seven years in Tarbert. He never got paid for it, but the laird let him stay there in the one bit wi his tent.

  Now his wife, my granny, was only a young woman then when she had her family. You know what like travellers are, they have their family very
quick: all in a minute they’re young, and all in a minute they’re old and grown up. My granny and grandfather were just a young couple, I would say in their late thirties, when my grandfather got this umbrella to mend. A brolly for Mrs Campbell in Tarbert.

  She says, ‘Willie, you’ll take this umbrella home and you’ll mend it for me.’ Now it just shows you what like travellers were. This is the way the story went . . .

  ‘All right,’ said old Willie, ‘I’ll take it home,’ And he was the most beautiful wee man you ever saw! He wasn’t very big, but he had some big sons. He was only about five foot two, and he had red rosy cheeks, fair curly hair, and he wore this fisherman’s jersey and a blue jacket. And he went up with this umbrella after he’d fixed it. He put a slide into it, new stems in it and fixed it beautifully. He went up with it to Mrs Campbell, gave her the umbrella and she was pleased about this! Umbrellas weren’t easy things to buy in these days. And my granny, she’s waiting at the road for him coming down. To mend an umbrella then was about two shillings. But she thought he was taking too long. Mrs Campbell asked old Willie in for a cup o tea. So he naturally went in. Not to insult the old woman he went in and took a cup o tea from her. Now Granny, she’s waiting on the road. She waited and she waited and she waited, waited for about half an hour. No Willie. He was still in the house.

  Now she believed in her mind there was something between Mrs Campbell and my grandfather. And when my grandfather finally came down, she flew at him like a bat from hell, told him that he was having an affair with Mrs Campbell. Now this was the story I’m going to tell you. Betsy was only four years old at this time. That was 1918. She was born in 1914, was four years old just when the war was finished. And I remember my granny and grandfather in 1937, that’s when George VII came to the throne, I wasn’t very old. And from that day in 1918 on to the day that she died my granny never slept with my grandfather again. She came home and built another tent to herself. She stayed across from him, she made her own meals and he made his own meals. And they sat and talked and they cracked, put young Betsy to her bed. She said, ‘Good night, MacWilliam.’ That’s all she called him, all the days o her life she never called him anything else. ‘Good night, MacWilliam, I’m off to my bed.’ From that day on, and she was seventy-eight when she died, she never slept with him another day.