The Horsieman

by Ducan Williamson

  I said, ‘Awa lassie, ye’re mad! That’s nae yir brother John.’

  She said, ‘That’s my brother John’s horse. I ken that horse frae the distance. I bet ye a pound it is!’ We could see it coming in the distance.

  I said, ‘Never in a million years, that’s nae yir brother.’ So we pushed on and sure enough it was, her brother John and her mother, and they were all the way from Dunfermline to Tealing. They must have got an idea that we were in Aberdeen. They would have made their way there. And they stopped, pulled into the roadside.

  Old Bellag never said a word about us being together, but only asked, ‘Where are yese makin fir?’

  I said, ‘We left Forfar auld road. We were wi Sandy and Katie.’

  She never said a word, but only, ‘Where dae ye think the two o youse is makin fir?’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘Auntie, we’re jist daein the best we can. We’re makin back tae Fife.’

  She says, ‘We cam lookin fir youse. We heard youse is in Forfar.’ Somebody had tellt her. And she said, ‘I was wonderin how yese were gettin on.’

  I said, ‘We’re gettin on fine.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘what are yese gaunna dae? Are youse gaun tae come back wi hus or are youse gaun on bi yirsel?’

  ‘Ach,’ I said, ‘It maks nae difference; we’ll go back wi youse!’

  John said, ‘Mother, there a lot o travellers in these huts in there.’ Now it was a big Army camp and all these beautiful huts were lying empty. Anyone could walk in and take one. So John said to me, ‘How about me and you takin a hut in here fir a while?’ In this Army camp at Tealing.

  I said, ‘All right, John. That suits me fine.’ So we pulled in the horse. There was plenty o grass, meat for the horse. And we took one big hut between us. There were these big stoves in them. You kindled a big fire in the hut, you know. There was plenty of room. And you could make all your beds on the floor. I said, ‘You take that side, I’ll take this side.’ He and I were fine, happy there. The police came in but they never said a word.

  John said, ‘We’ll stay on, see what like it is.’

  But we were in there for two days. Who dropped in next? Sandy and Buggie. Sandy had two prams, Katie had got them. Buggie and his mother, and Mary his wife all came in. They took the next hut beside us. So we stayed there for about a week and there was a bus running to Dundee. The women did pretty well. But they couldn’t get any elderberry to make flowers. Dundee was red hot for flowers, you could sell them galore. So we searched all the district looking for elderberry. There was none to be got.

  So I said to Jeannie one night when she and I were sitting together at the fire, ‘It’s all right, elderberry. But there bound tae be other ways o makin flooers.’

  ‘Aye, ye can mak flooers wi onything,’ she says, ‘but ye cannae stick them on privet.’

  ‘Well, wait a minute. Hoo can ye pit paper flowers on privet? They’ve got nae heart in them neither.

  ‘No, you’ve got to put a wee bit copper wire on them ta tie them ontae the privet.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘copper wire’s easy gotten here.’ Because there were lighting services all round the huts. the wires were all broken. ‘There’s loads o copper wire,’ I said. ‘Wait a minute.’ I went and got a big log, a pine log. I split it into kindlings. And I sat down and made three dozen flowers out of these kindlings. Any kind of wood’ll make the same flower, but the travellers used elderberry because it was soft in the heart. You could shove a stick up into it. But after I made my flower heads I went out and burned a lot of copper wire, and put a twist of wire around the end of each flower. I said to Jeannie, ‘Twist that round, on the top o the privet wi a wee bit copper wire, same as a paper flooer.’ And I made these beautiful curly flowers, you see. Sandy was in the next hut.

  The next morning Jeannie went away to the town with the rest of the women, but she had three dozen beautiful flowers. She always carried dye with her, packets. She dyed them red and yellow.

  ‘Oh,’ Katie said, ‘whaur’re ye gettin the bonnie flooers?’

  She says, ‘Duncan made them.’

  ‘Whaur’s he gettin the wood? He never tellt Sandy. Where’s he gaun fir the wood?’ And they had nothing, you see.

  She said, ‘He made them oot o kindlings, bits o board.’

  And then they started. They stripped every bit of wood, every piece round the whole huts. So when I saw that, my plan was finished. So I went round the old huts at night and looked. The huts were loaded with lead. I said, ‘I’m no makin nae mair flooers.’ I saw all this lead hanging, lead piping and lead wire. And then the gutters and the roans in the huts – the huts were finished – but all the gutters were filled up with lead. So I pulled in this lead, pulled it all down. And I had a big fire in this hut. I got a big basin. I put it in the front of the fire. And all night when everybody was asleep, I was putting these big lumps of lead into the fire. And it came running out, and I filled this basin. I was making big ingots of lead, basins full! And I packed them in the bottom of my pram the next day and hurled it into Dundee.

  I was making good money! Nobody knew what I was doing. Even the police that stopped me on the road couldn’t say anything because it was melted ingots of lead. Nobody ever knew. I was going with the pram every day, Jeannie and I to the town. And I was doing fine. Then one night Buggie came in and he saw me at this. He watched me making this lead. I couldn’t help it.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘this is what ye’re up tae, wee man! This is what ye’re daein. Is that why ye’re gaun tae Dundee so often?’

  I said, ‘Aye.’

  So that night he would go and he would do the same thing, see, he copied me. But he had no pram to put it in. Didn’t he fill a suitcase to carry in his hand? And he made these square ingots of lead. And he walked out to the road to stop a bus. Who came cycling along but the police with a bike? Polis stopped, asked his name.

  ‘Oh, Charlie Reid.’ Now Buggie had made up his mind that day to leave his mother. He and his wife were going back to Aberdeen to see her mother. And he was taking this case of lead with him to sell in Dundee, and take the bus to Aberdeen. The police stopped him. I was there. I was standing at the roadend. There was a big wide drive going in, and I was out to see him off. He had this big heavy case packed with these ingots of lead. Now by this time I had saved a few shillings and I had two-three pound tucked away in my own pocket. I had this and I wasn’t caring. I had buried about six hundred weight of ingots in the ground and covered it over with earth. I was working all night! And we had so much lead, in later weeks I left Fife and came back for it with a pony. John and I drove the whole night through, the whole farin night. This was how I got my first start. And I was stealing it right enough. But it was derelict properties. We didn’t think of it as stealing. We weren’t hurting anybody. We had to survive.

  Polis said, ‘What’s in the case?’

  Buggie said, ‘My claes. My wife and me is gaun off.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘ye’re movin oot?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Open it, open yir case and let’s have a look at it! It looks kind o heavy tae me.’ A polis wi a bike!

  Buggie said, ‘It’s only ma claes, man, that’s in the case.’

  ‘If it’s yir claes, open it!’ Buggie opened it, and there were these melted bars of lead. ‘Oh, that’s yir game,’ polis said, ‘that’s yir game. This is what ye’re up tae. Well, look, laddie, I’ll tell ye something. Where’d ye get that?’

  Buggie said, ‘It’s wee bits o cable I gathered roond the huts and I’ve melted it.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘tak it and go to Dundee and sell it, and get tae Aberdeen! And look, if ever I catch yir face aboot Dundee or aboot this district again, there nae charges fir ye – it’s arrested on the spot! Now get!’ It was a good policeman would do that, ken. Buggie jumped on the bus with his case of this lead. And the polis let him off, oh, he let him go. He couldn’t prove it because it was melted, you see. And Buggie went back to Aberdeen. And two
days after that John and I shifted across the ferry.

  ‘Noo,’ I said to John, ‘I’m no leavin my leid.’

  ‘Brother, it’s a big risk,’ he said to me, ‘taking that.’

  I said, ‘I cannae sell it aa.’ Because I had all these melted bars. I was melting all night making them, like mill wheels. ‘I’m taking this wi me, John. I’ll put it in yir cairt. If anything happens, I’ll take the blame o it. I’m no sellin it in Dundee. We’ll take it through to Fife tae Leslie.’

  ‘All right,’ he says to me. And he had a horse and a four-wheeled lorry. So the next morning we packed all our things. I packed my pram and I got John to give me a hand. I put these four bags of lead in the back of John’s lorry. And I came behind him with my pram. His mother and his wee sister and his brother, we all walked on down through Dundee. John’s horse was a wee bit afraid of the ferry, because horses didn’t like it very much with the water on each side.

  But anyway, we got across the Tay all right. It was only a six pence for the horse and cart, and thruppence for each person. We landed at Tayport, and a mile along from there was an old road where you could camp. John pulled the cart in, and he and I put up our tents. We had our tea. And we’re just sitting at our tea when along comes the police with a car, an old-fashioned car, two policemen. Now these bags of lead are sitting in the back of the cart. Police come in, ask our names. We told them everybody’s names.

  ‘Where do you come fae?’

  ‘Tealing.’

  ‘Oh aye. Did you come across the ferry?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we’ve got a search warrant tae search yir premises.’

  ‘Oh well,’ I said, ‘constable, if you’ve got a search warrant tae search the premises, you’d better go ahead and dae it.’ Jeannie had a wee case for holding her own bits of clothes. Not me. I just wore my clothes from day to day. I didn’t have any extra. What I had was on my back, except an odd clean shirt now and again she washed in the burn when it got too dirty. So, she had wee bits o things for changing herself.

  He said, ‘Eh, can I look in yir case, hen?’

  ‘Oh,’ Jeannie said, ‘you can go ahead and look in the case if ye want.’

  So he opened the case. ‘Oh aye, it’s all right.’ Shut the case. Into my tent.

  I said, ‘The’re nothing but two-three blankets in the tent.’ Into the other tent he went, round all the things.

  ‘No,’ he said. Up to the cart, looked all round the cart. And these bags are sitting in the back. And it was a sergeant, you see. He chapped the bag with his hand. ‘What’s in the bags?’

  I said, ‘Lead, lead in the bags.’

  He said, ‘Lead, my bloody arse ’at’s in the bags! Lead, my bloody arse!’

  I said, ‘It is lead!’

  He said, ‘That’ll be right!’ You see, lead was a good price then. And he walked back.

  I said, ‘Constable, tell me the truth, what is it you’re really lookin fir?’

  ‘Well, seein we huvnae found what we’re after, I’ll tell ye: there were two lads’ suitcases lifted off the ferryboat this morning. Someone lifted them and youse travellers cam across the ferry about the same time. We thought prob’ly . . .’

  I said, ‘If tinkers is there, they’ll get the blame o anything.’

  ‘Oh no, no,’ he said, ‘we never blamed nobody. Anyway, we had tae come and see.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘ye’re quite welcome tae come and see. But I’ll tell ye something, we never lifted nae suitcases. We haenae got nae suitcases.’

  So they went away. The next day John says to me, ‘Me and you are definitely lucky.’ So we shifted the next morning and we drove the way right to the New Inn in Fife, and that was a big whinny moor. We stayed there, and the next day John and I drove into Leslie and sold the lead. There was never a word ever said about it from that day on.

  John and I spent two-three months in Fife and my one ambition, because he was shifting, carrying my camp in his cart, was to have a pony of my own. But that’s another story! The most important thing I want to tell you about right now is the story which lives in my memory for evermore. It is one of these things you can just never forget.

  One day we were camped at the New Inn where that garage is on the motorway to Kirkcaldy. We got up this morning and my cousin said to me, ‘Brother, we’ve been here a while now; we’ve been six months in Fife. I would like tae have a trip back to Angus.’ He was awful fond of Angus and Perthshire, but I had no time for these places. My life was in Fife because this is where it all began with me as a grown man.

  I said, ‘All right, cousin, it’s up to you wherever you want to go. It disnae make nae difference to me.’ We were young then. I had no children. I said, ‘It’s okay wi me. If you’re fed up with Fife, I’ll go wi you to Perthshire or Angus-shire, wherever you want, providin we can always come back to Fife in the wintertime.’

  He says, ‘Okay then.’ It was only he and his mother, his brother and his wee sister. I was married to the other sister. He had a nice pony and I had a nice pony. How I got this pony is another story. Beautiful yokes we had. So Jeannie was expecting our first child and John wanted a trip back to Angus because this was his father’s country. His father was a pearl fisher and he had spent many a time in Angus and Perthshire. I think the very first time John ever came to Fife was when he came with me. So the spring was coming in. It was about the month of March or April. The grass was just coming for the horses and we didn’t need to feed them. I had this beautiful pony and so had he. But his pony only had one eye. It was a roan horse. But oh, sister, it could trot for fun! And he had refused many’s a swap. It was fast, a really fast horse. This pony I had was a good one, but it was young. I was awful fond of getting a colt and breaking it in, making it my own so’s it would grow into money.

  I don’t know what put it in my mind in these days, but I wasn’t just a person who would go for any kind of horse. Probably it was going back to my own time when my father had tellt me, ‘Laddie, if ye ever get a horse, make sure you dinnae get a thing that everybody else is finished with. Get something that’s young and strong that you can dae something with.’ That was his words. So they were always in my mind. Though I did have many’s a deal later on to things that weren’t worth tuppence. That, too, is another story.

  But the thing I want to tell you now is the original tale, how my cousin and I set off from the New Inn in Fife. We travelled through Cupar and camped the other side of the town, and then we made our way to the ferry. There was no Tay Bridge in these days, in 1949. So we crossed on the boat. It was a day of rain and sleet and the waves were lashing! My horse was only about three years old. It had never been on a ferry boat in its life. So, the man on the ferry was really up to the way you could cross water: he always came with blocks to put behind the wheel so’s the horse couldn’t move the cart. There were a lot of cars and lorries on. My cousin’s horse was about nine or ten years old. It was an old-timer to the road, but it was a good one. We paid our ferry and pulled our horses on to cross to Dundee.

  Now I wanted John to go to Hoolet’s Neuk. The old traditional camping ground that brings back memories to me. I said, ‘Cousin, why don’t we make our way up to the Murroes? We’ll have a night in the Hoolet’s Neuk. Ye remember?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I remember the Hoolet’s Neuk, brother. But it’s too far for my mammy and Jeannie tae come hame, because the bus run is awfae poor. We’ll go to the Murroes for the night. And it’s close for the women to go to the toon.’ It was a wee wood on the other side of Dundee.

  I said, ‘All right.’ But anyway, the waves were lashing across the ferry. The spray was coming over the side of the boat. And I’m standing holding my pony by the head in case it would carry on. It couldn’t get off the boat because the sides were high. And out comes this old woman. She had an umbrella and a white coat on. She took off her coat. And I’m standing – there’s no escape from the spray coming over the side of the boat. We had a rough day
, really rough crossing. And the waves were splashing across the horse’s feet. Some of the spray was coming on the horse’s back. But my cousin’s horse didn’t seem to mind. He was standing with his back to the spray so’s the water wouldn’t go in the horse’s face. He got it on his back. And this old woman came with an umbrella, a handbag and a coat. The deckhands did all their best to provide for you crossing the boat, especially with a horse.

  And the woman said, ‘Oh, I can’t take this! A beautiful pony. All the spray.’ And she came up with her coat, ‘Put that over the horsie.’

  I said, ‘Missus, please! What about me? I’m standin here and I’m haudin the horsie,’ and I’m trying to keep my back to the spray. It was splashing the horse’s face and I was feared o the horse rearing up.

  She said, ‘Put my coat over the horse to keep it dry.’

  I said, ‘How about giein me the coat, granny, and put it ower me?’

  ‘No, I’m no givin it to you! I want to give it to the pony.’

  I said, ‘Never mind the pony. The pony’s all right. It’s okay. Dinnae worry. Take your coat. Ye’re no haudin—’

  ‘Try and hold it up in front of the pony, keep the water from goin on the pony!’ she said.

  ‘Never mind the pony!’ But I coaxed the woman anyway, I got her settled.

  So we got across the ferry. My cousin’s horse was used to it. We drove off and I got in behind John because he knew the road. We led our horses up through Dundee, and this pony I had was young, a quick stepper. The Murroes was about four miles from Dundee on the Forfar road. So we landed there and put up our tents. Jeannie and her mother stayed in Dundee, got their messages and came out on the bus.

  So the next morning after we got things done, I said, ‘Cousin, where are we makin fir?’

  He said, ‘We’re makin tae Forfar, roond by Kirriemuir, roond by Alyth and in by Blairgowrie. I want to see my father’s grave. And if you’re interested we’ll go back in by Perth and the Bridge of Earn, and land back in Fife for the winter.’

  I said, ‘That’s okay. That suits me fine.’