So he said to my cousin, ‘Are ye interested in that pony?’
And he said, ‘Aye, I’m quite interested.’
He said, ‘Ye still got that wee chestnut yet?’
‘I still have it yet,’ he said, ‘it’s doon there.’
He said, ‘Is it aye as good as it was, aye as fat as it was?’
‘Aye, it is. Ye ken I always look after it,’ he said, ‘it’s ae as fat as it was.’
‘Well, this beast is no very old,’ he said.
John said, ‘I ken it’s only four year old. Is it broken in?’
‘Aye, well, it’s workin onyway.’ That’s all he said, you couldn’t guarantee any more than that. ‘So eh,’ he said, ‘If you’re interested, I’ll prob’ly see ye after the sale. I’ve got a man to see. I’ll prob’ly see you later on.’
So John says to me, ‘Come on, we’ll go down and get a cup o tea.’ So we walked out of the maket and we had a cup of tea and a pie in a wee place further down. He says, ‘What do you think of the sale noo then?’
‘Oh, wheesht speakin,’ I said, ‘you’ve nae idea! It’s fantastic. I’ve seen mair horses than I’ve ever seen in my life. And they’re so cheap. If I had money I’d buy the whole bloody lot, everyone of them.’
He said, ‘It’ll go on tonight till about eleven o’clock. Most of those horses you’ve seen all go to get killed. These dealers come. But come on – we’ll go back up and let me have a look, see what’s gaun on.’ So we go up to the ring, in through the same door. And by luck we got back to the same bit where I had been. Straight across from where we were was this man with a weather-beaten face. He was dark skinned. His hair had never been combed for weeks and he had this raggie coat on him. And every pony that came in, up goes his hand! He was bidding on every one, but he never bought any.
So I said to John, ‘That gadgie ower there, John, he seems to be tryin to get a horse.’
‘Brother, he’s no tryin to get nae horse.’ He said, ‘I ken him well. He’ll bid on every single pony there. He’s jeein them up tae other folk. He kens what the owners o these horses want for them. You notice when it makes a certain price, he’ll drop out. And he’ll no pass that. That’s what the owners want for the horse. If they want twenty pound, he’ll drop out at eighteen, and he’ll dae that aa day. After the horse is sellt the body belongin to the horse’ll prob’ly gie him a pound, maybe ten shillings. He’ll make hissel mebbe eight or nine pound for his day’s work.’
I said, ‘Is that no against the law?’
He said, ‘It’s no against the law, but if he’s catcht at it he’ll be banned from the sale. Naebody never seems tae bother.’ So we sat and watched two or three horses getting sellt for a while, and he says, ‘Come on. It’s gettin kind o late. I’m no interested in nothing here onyway.’ It was about one o’clock in the afternoon, and he said, ‘I’d better go and see that wee gadgie.’
I said, ‘You really gaunna put your pony awa?’
He said, ‘I ken we’ve had it a while, and I could dae wi something a wee bit bigger.’ So we came down back out, and when we landed by the stalls there were about fifteen or sixteen yokes o travellers all lined up. You never saw so many travellers in your life! Some of them were drunk, some women with horses, laddies with horses and lassies. And they’re running them up and down, up and down. The old men standing with whips and they’re hitting the horses, welting them up and down, not touching them, just cracking the whip to keep them running, so they could see that their legs weren’t lame. Running them up and running them down and they’re swapping and dealing, hitting hands. [SLAP] And they’re out and in, back and forward into the pub.
I said, ‘This is a pantomime!’
John said, ‘This is their day! This is their life. This goes on every Monday. And this’ll go on till late hours at night, and some of them start, come in here wi a good horse and they’ll go home wi nothing. Some of them will come in here wi nothing and they’ll go home wi a good horse. They’ll swap and they’ll deal and tomorrow morning they’ll be sadder and wiser. But they’ll still keep it goin, they’ll still never forget. Some of them’ll be burnt, some of them’ll be roasted, some’ll have a bad deal, some’ll have a good deal. Some of them will fight, some o them will drink, some will have an argument. But tonight it will all be discussed back over the camp fire again. And some of them come from miles away to get here!’
So we came down, right at the pen where this pony was. Here was the wee man, this country gadgie, this horse dealer again. John spoke to him.
He says, ‘Come on then, let me have a look at your pony. See if it’s as good as ever it was the last time I seen it.’ Now I didn’t want to interfere. And the wee man said, ‘Well, what do you think?’
‘Well, I could dae wi your pony,’ John said, ‘and you could dae wi mine. I ken you could.’
‘Well, how can we deal?’ the wee man said to him.
My cousin said, ‘Mine’s in workin order. I dinna ken so much about yours, and it’s kind o young, kind o poorly. It’s no thin, but it’s poorly. And I think I’ll need five pound aboot fae ye.’
‘Heh-heh-heh,’ he said, ‘no laddie! I doot no. You’ll no get nae five pound aboot fae me.’
‘Well,’ John said, ‘what do you think?’
He said, ‘I was thinkin I’ll gie ye three pound. Ye asked me five, I’ll gie ye three.’
‘Nah,’ John said. ‘No, I think mine’s valuet a bit more ’n that.’
‘Ah well, there nae harm done,’ the man said. ‘That’s twice I’ve been at you for it, but I see you’re no keen on puttin it awa. But I’m tellin you, that’s a good pony. If you get it and keep it, it’ll come into a good pony.’ So they hemmed and hawed and they cracked a while longer.
Then John says, ‘Come here. I’ll tell you what I’ll dae wi ye. Look, you bid me three; gie me four pound and we’ll call it a deal!’
The wee man said, ‘I’m no wantin yir cart and harness. I’ve got plenty at hame. No! I wouldnae gie ye four pound. Haud yir hand oot! Now this is the first time!’
I said, ‘Here it goes again!’
He said, ‘Come on, I’ll gie ye three pound ten [SLAP] and my horse for yours.’
John says, ‘Right, haud yir hand [SLAP] – done!’
‘Noo,’ he said, ‘how’re we going to work this?’
‘Well,’ John said, ‘I’ll tell ye what I’ll dae wi ye. I’ll take this pony, it’s yir pony now and put it in your pen.’
The wee man said, ‘Look, I’ve got a man to meet and I’ll have to go, boys.’ So he took the money out of his pocket and paid John three-pound-ten. And he said, ‘Just put it in the pen where ye get yir ain ane oot.’
So John took the wee pony up, took out the other one, and put this one in. Then he pulled it. It wouldnae walk very easily; it wasn’t walking very well. I came behind it and I hit it wi a bit rope on the hip, but it didn’t seem to take any effect.
I said to myself. ‘I doot yir gaunna be kind o slow, kind o lazy.’ Because I began to understand then, I had a good idea. When I hit it on the hip, it pulled its bum into it, pulled its tail in. ‘Oh,’ I said to myself, ‘you’re no wicked, you’re no a kicker nae way.’ But I said to John, ‘What do you think?’
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘this is a good beast. It’s a good pony. I’ve been after this pony for a while.’ But it had the longest neck I ever saw in my life, a neck like a goose. But it was a good beast. He put the harness on it in two minutes. We yoked it up, put it in the cart, backed it in, pulled the float out and fastened it. He said, ‘We’ll lead it a wee bit through the toon in case it disna rein right.’ So we led it down through the back streets out over the bridge on the main road to the camp.
He says to me, ‘Jump up on the other side! And we’ll see what it can dae.’ So I jumped up beside him and he took the end of the reins. He skelped it. But nah, nah! It did a wee bit trot, ken, deedle-doddle, deedle-doddle, deedle-doddle, trotted on and on and on. It wasn’t as fast as his other one. But
he kept bragging, telling me how good it was and admiring it. I knew he was only building up his own idea. But it went fair enough with him. He went into the shop, bought me twenty fags and twenty fags to himself, and a book with the ten shilling. He kept three pound to bring back to his mother. But we made our way back to the old road, and we had to pass by the camp on the road coming in. His mother was in the tent making tea, boiling tatties or something. John tried to pull the pony’s head up and hit it with the reins, make it prance coming to the camp to give it a good show. We never saw the two traveller folk, the Hieland man and his good-son in the sale, in the market. But John had introduced me to bings of travellers, people I had never seen before in my life. ‘Some of them are yir ain relations,’ he was telling me. And I had an exciting day. I’d seen things I never believed existed. I thought on my brother Sandy’s words. And I really liked the market an awful lot. I made up my mind some day I was going to go back there when I had money of my own. But the thing was, all those years I was among horses for close on thirty years, I never bought a horse in a market in Perth. I bought them in Aberdeen and in Glasgow markets.
So, as I tellt you, we landed back to the camp, and it wasn’t very far off the road where the tent was and his mother. She never even came out. She heard the horse’s feet on the road. We pulled in, we loosened it out, took the harness off and we took it up to the front of the camp.
He says, ‘Mother, come and see, what do you think of this?’
That’s what she said, ‘It’s a nice pony, laddie, but I’ll tell ye something, it’s lazy.’ She knew just by hearing its feet on the road. And John knew himself it was lazy. This was its complaint. That’s why he only had it one night.
I’d like to tell you about this place where we were staying at that time. It was an old road about six miles the other side of Perth on the main road to Blairgowrie. It was owned by a farmer there and it was a right-away to his fields. But it went right up, if you followed it, an old cart road, an old drove road at one time going up to Scone and the aer’drome. The travellers had been staying there, och, for close on a hundred and fifty years. And there were four generations of this family who owned the farm. The travellers used to tie their horses to the fence, there was no place else. And you know when a horse has been tied up to a fence it pulls against the rope and slackens the posts, and sometimes they tangle up in the wire.
Somebody had remarked to the farmer at some time, it was told to me by someone, ‘Why is it you tolerate these traveller people or tinkers on your old road up there, the access to your fields?’
‘Well,’ he says, ‘they’ve been camping down that road before my time and I suppose they’ll be there after I’m gone. But man, ye ken something, it would be a dull day for me if I would wake up some morning and look up that old road and never see a camp on it for a week. I’m so accustomed to seein tents on that old road that it would feel funny to me if they bypassed it.’
I think he really had a wee bit in mind, that if travellers did pass it by, it would be unlucky. There were certain camps that were open for travellers to stay on, but the travellers passed them by and said they were unlucky. Prob’ly he had got that idea in his head at one time, or his father before him.
So my cousin and I took the pony up the old road to tether it. The grass was beginning to come. It was late spring and the horse was able to pick enough to keep itself alive. In the two other camps were the family of Highland Stewarts with their two horses, a white one and a garron. We walked up the old road and the old man came out. He spoke to my cousin, but I never said much.
And he said, ‘You got a strange face, laddie?’ That’s what they called a new horse.
My cousin said, ‘Aye, I got a bit o a beast there.’
He said, ‘It’s a nice young horse that.’
And my cousin said, ‘Oh aye, he should do well if he gets a bite o grass for the summer.’
We walked further up and tethered the pony in the best bit. The grass was eaten up with the folk shifting their horses up and down the old road. But the main thing was, when the grass was short you had to shift your horse more often. There were plenty of places, the road was long and it wasn’t very broad, a fence on each side and access to the farmer’s fields all the way up. So we walked back down and we looked at the two horses on the road passing.
I said, ‘That’s no two bad ponies.’
‘Aye,’ my cousin said, ‘the old one, the old thick horse there would dae anybody’s turn. But I’m not sae fond o the white ane.’ It was still early in the evening. We came back and got some supper from my auntie. We sat and cracked for a while. John says, ‘We’ll go back up again and shift the pony. I always like to keep in touch wi a young horse, or a strange horse in case it gets its legs tangled up in the rope, because it might no be broken into the tether.’ We walked up and shifted the pony. On the road back down the old man came out again from his camp.
He said to my cousin, ‘Can I see you a minute? Youse busy, lads?’
We said, ‘No, we’re no busy, just shiftin the pony.’
He said, ‘Eh, I ken you’ve only got that pony the day, but I took an awful notion tae it.’
And my cousin said, ‘Were you no in the market yirsel?’
‘Aye, I was in, but I didna stay very long.’ He said, ‘I just went in and cam back on the bus.’ The buses passed every half hour on the road to Perth. ‘But I’ve an awful notion tae that pony, laddie,’ he said, ‘and you wouldnae be puttin it awa would ye?’
‘Ah well,’ my cousin said, ‘I only got it today but I’m no married tae it.’ None of the travellers ever refused a deal. They never refused.
‘Well,’ the old man said, ‘you’ve seen my pony there, that white pony. It’s a bit poor, but if it was fattened up on the grass it would be a good horse.’
‘Well,’ says my cousin, ‘you ken the old saying: no disregards to your horse, but a white horse is only worth white money.’ And they laughed. This was all new to me. The old man didn’t feel insulted in any way, he just took it as a joke.
‘Well, laddie, I’ve got a notion tae your horse,’ he said, ‘how can me and you swap?’
‘Old man, the best way we can! I’ve seen your horse and it’s comin up a fair age.’
‘Oh,’ the old man said, ‘it’s nae youngster, but it’s a good horse, it’s a soond horse.’
‘Ah,’ my cousin said, ‘a soond horse, aye, I can see that. Well, if you’re willin to gie me, willin to have a deal, I’ll take ten pound aboot fae ye and yir horse.’
‘No,’ said the old man, ‘that you’ll no dae!’ So they talked and they hemmed and hawed for a bit, but there was nothing else. John stuck to his word and maybe he wasn’t wanting to deal with the old man anyway, because he didn’t like the white horse. They didn’t barter much. The old man said, ‘No, laddie, it’s too much money for me. That ane I’ve got there’s costin me too much, but I’ve got a guid float and harness.’
John said, ‘A good float and harness never made a good horse.’ Oh, he was up to all the tricks of the day, though he was only a young laddie. He knew it. He knew all the patter. But we were just standing cracking after that. They couldn’t deal anything. Then a young man came walking up. It was the old man’s son-in-law and he spoke a wee while, spoke about the market, asked us what the prices were. I never said anything because I didn’t want to say something out of line.
He said to his father-in-law (and must have planned earlier between them, that the old man was going to have a deal), ‘Do youse two no mak a bargain at all?’
‘No,’ the old man says, ‘we cannae come to terms. He’s askin me too much tae deal. But I like his pony.’
‘Well,’ John said, ‘I asked him fair enough. That pony cost me a good bit masel.’ And he tellt the young man, ‘I asked him ten pound aboot.’
The young man said to him, ‘You’ve seen my pony haven’t you?’
‘Aye,’ John said, I’ve seen your pony. It’s seen a few travellers.’
‘Aye,’ the young man said, ‘It’s been among a few travellers. It’s been among wir family for a while too, for a long while. Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do wi ye. You asked the old man ten pound aboot. I’ll gie ye ten pound and my horse for that young horse you’ve got!’
‘Well,’ John said, ‘you’ve never met a gamer man in your life! Ane horse is like another to me.’ And before you could say ‘Jack Robinson’ the two of them hit hands [SLAP] and that was the deal made.
So the young man says to him, ‘I’ll just lea it where it is the noo.’ But they had dealed horses and harness: he said, ‘I’ll need yours because my harness’ll no be able to fit that.’ it was heavy harness the lad had. ‘But, mind, they’re no a great set o harness.’ My cousin’s set was light and they wouldn’t fit the big horse. It was a good, thick pony, a garron.
So he says, ‘All right.’ Old harness was cheap at that time, easy to pick up. You could pick up a set for about twenty-five shillings or two pound. So John said, ‘I’ll hae a look at your harness onyway.’ So the lad took us down to his tent and his young woman came out. She was tall and had long braided hair down her back. She asked us for tea.
‘No,’ we said, ‘we’ll take a cup of tea, but we just had wir supper.’ We didn’t want to refuse the lass a cup of tea because it was a bad policy refusing a cup of tea from folk. They thought that you were thinking it wasn’t good enough. She had a couple of wee weans running about. And the lad had his harness lying in below his cart.
So my cousin pulled them out. They were a workable set but not up to high standards. The old man had walked down with us to the lad’s camp, and we’d kent by this time the young man was married on to the old man’s daughter.
And he said to my cousin, ‘Well, you finally got the old faithful.’
‘Aye,’ John said, ‘I’ve got him.’
‘Well,’ the old man said, ‘laddie, I’ll tell you something, you’ll never be stuck wi him. There’s nae road lang enough for him. He’ll tak you ony place you want to go. That’s been along among wir family for a number o years, that old horse. And I fetched him doon fae Inverness masel.’
The Horsieman Page 13