The Horsieman

by Ducan Williamson

  So the next morning we packed up. We only carried a tent, some sticks for the camp and a few blankets, some dishes and two-three clothes for ourselves, which was very few. It wasn’t hard to do. The part of the packing left to the man was taking down the tent, folding up the canvas, tying the sticks together. The other part was left to the woman, his wife. While the man was taking down the tent, the woman gathered her wee bit of cooking utensils together, her dishes, whatever bits of messages she had. She had small boxes to put them in and she packed them in the cart herself. The man put the camp sticks and canvas on last, because it came off first. The snottum for the fire and for making holes for the sticks went on, and this was all the man’s job. We always put the float, or cart or maybe a lorry, a four-wheeler or a two-wheeler, up on a prop so’s it was level. But the woman always put her dishes and kitchen things to the very back, so’s if she had to stop along the roadside and make a cup of tea she knew where to get her things.

  John and I yoked up, packed up our things and drove on the road. It was only Jeannie, her mother, her wee sister and her brother – they just jumped up in the carts. And the horse, sister, a trotting horse could trot for miles! You jumped up and the cart was like driving a motor. You sat there and the horse could just – ‘gee up!’ And that horse could go on, trot for mile after mile after mile at a good trot. You never chased it. It never walked. It trotted, doing about ten or twelve mile an hour, a real trot, round bends, up corners, up hills, the horse never stopped. Till it got tired and you knew when your horse was tired.

  But we drew into Forfar. We stopped and Jeannie and her mother got some messages. We made some tea. John said, ‘Brother, it’s no far.’ It was early spring. ‘We’ll drive oot to Glamis Green. We’ll hae a crack, maybe a game of quoits or something. There always travellers on Glamis Green.’

  Glamis Green has been a camp back to the fifteenth century for travellers. Any travellers passing by through Angus, they always stopped in Glamis Green. And my cousin John’s father had this as his favourite camping place, and John wanted to camp there.

  I said, ‘That’s all right to me.’ Now I’d never been on Glamis Green in my life before. I said, ‘Drive on, I’ll drive behind ye.’ But my hand to God – his old pony could really trot. It only had one eye!’ So I said to Jeannie, ‘Jump up in ahind the cairt and we’ll drive on.’ So, John’s sitting on the driving side, and his mother and his brother are on the other side. His wee sister is in the middle. Me and Jeannie, we’re only the two of us. And my pony, I’m holding her back behind John’s. We drove up towards Glamis Green. There’s two gellies sitting! Tank and lums, and chimneys right through the centres. And there were two rubber-tyred carts, a gig and a float pulled alongside the camps. But no horses. We stopped a wee bit back the road.

  John says to me, ‘There travellers on the green.’

  ‘Aye, they’re travellers.’

  ‘Gellies!’ he said. ‘It’s some of the Skye MacDonalds, Inverness folk.’ They weren’t Perthshire or Angus travellers, because they weren’t up to the gellies in these days. He said, ‘It’s Hieland folk. Look at that gelly!’ And you want to see it, sister! It was built just like a barrage balloon – you couldn’t even see a ripple about the canvas – it was built so tight. And it was straight and long, the chimneys coming out and they were reeking! Two of them right in the middle of the green.

  So we drove in. There was plenty of room for everybody. The first thing we lowsed our ponies out, let the shafts down on the ground. And then we took the harness off and put it alongside the wheel of the cart, and got our tethers out. We gave the ponies a rub down with a bag because they were a bit sweaty. We looked for the best bit of grass. Now in Glamis Green there’s an old road, an old pathway that goes down. The green was big, but the grass was poor and the travellers used to tether their horses down the old road. But till we got the tent out we just tied the ponies close to the site. And we started to put the camps up.

  Now it was the early spring and we didn’t need anything but a bow tent, just a half-hooped tent with a fire. John put his up, and I put mine opposite, and we kindled a fire in the centre. Just two bow tents and an open fire in the middle. No gellies. Because we had no weans. John’s youngest sister was about seven. All we needed was a bed of straw. And then we had our snottum for hanging the pots over the fire. He and I gathered sticks and kindled a big fire. It was up to the women to boil tea or fry ham, or do anything they wanted. It wasn’t our business – we took what we could get!

  I didn’t need a big tent. It was only me and her, just the two of us. And I remember fine what I had for my tent. It was one of the war barrage balloons, one of these things you saw up in the sky to stop the Nazi planes from coming over, in case they ran into them. It was the finest of canvas you could ever get! Never was there a drip of rain ever came into it. And this tent was silver, pure silver – I had it beautifully made. Everybody admired it. I got this barrage balloon down in Fife at the docks in Methil. Silver inside and outside. I tightened it with stones and put it round, a real bow tent and a rigging stick across the top. Just for me and her, two of us. And we hung a sheet on the door at night-time right across the front. So we had our supper, had a wash, washed our faces and hands.

  John said to me, ‘I wonder wha has this tent?’ We weren’t far away from the gellies, about a hundred yards. But we never saw a soul. The people never came out.

  As soon as I had my tea Jeannie said, ‘I’ve a wee bit dishes to wash.’ We never kept very much, two cups for her and a cup for me, a couple of plates, wee bits of things the two of us needed, very little. Travelling life was just like you were on a picnic. That’s what it was! You were never settled. She didn’t build up any hopes that we were going to stay anywhere for long. The lightest things she could get she always kept, maybe a couple of spoons, two knives. No tables, no chairs or anything. It was a lifelong picnic from day in to day out. But we were happy.

  After we had our tea John says to me, ‘We’ll take the ponies doon the old road. There might be some grass. It’s kind of bare here.’

  I said, ‘Aye, that’s all right.’ I had this bonnie mare. John had a mare too. John always carried a curry-comb and brush. That was one thing about him – he always made sure that his horse got a clean after its day’s work. And a drink first thing, and they were tethered out and shifted every three hours. So after we got our ponies kind of cleaned up and brushed, checked their feet and put the tether on them for the night, we walked them down the old road. But we never saw any horses! Now this is about five o’clock in the month of April. And the nights were a wee bit longer. We tethered the ponies so they wouldn’t get fankled in each other’s ropes. We came walking up.

  John says, ‘It’s queer hantle.’ Meaning, queer people, never saying a word. But we came level to this gelly. This man stepped out.

  He said, ‘I see youse come in.’

  John looked at me and I looked at John. We knew. There’s nobody in the world knows better than the travellers where another traveller comes from, by the traveller’s language and how he speaks. Travellers have got that gift. They know all the travellers in Perthshire, all the travellers who met them before and all the travellers they’ve seen. But we had never seen this man before in our life. We knew by his tongue that he came either from Caithness or Wick. Or in the faraway North. And he was a stranger.

  He said, ‘Where youse come from, boys?’

  ‘Ah, we come across fae Fife.’

  ‘Oh, whereabouts is Fife, then? Is that a faraway place?’

  So we tried to explain to him. ‘Oh, it’s away across in another country. It’s no this shire. The’re a big river that separates it.’

  He said, ‘Is it a foreign country?’

  ‘No, it’s not a foreign country. Well, it’s another country on its own,’ trying to explain to him.

  What do they call you, boy?’

  Oh,’ I said, ‘never mind what they call me – what do they call you?’

  He s
aid, ‘I’m Dealin Isaac MacPhee from Wick!’

  Now I had said, ‘Never mind what they call us. What do they call you?’ It’s a wee bit umperant to ask people’s name. I said to him, ‘We’d never ask your name would we?’

  He said, ‘Oh, you needn’t ask me, boy! I’m Dealin Isaac MacPhee from Wick. It’s up North.’ This is the way he carried on. ‘And ma boys,’ he said, ‘is in here. Come oot now boys and meet the young men!’

  He flung the door of the gelly up and these two boys came out. They were about four foot high. They were young laddies! One about eighteen and one about twenty-five, I would say. And they were like gorillas. Their arms were longer than their legs. They were cave-looking creatures. They weren’t just the full shilling. ‘This is ma laddies,’ he said. But, sister, we came to love that man like a brother. You have no idea. The first meeting we gained a bad impression. Maybe we got off on the wrong leg. But he was very civil. ‘Where youse boys come fae?’ he asked.

  I said, ‘I’m a Williamson.’

  ‘Oh, you’re a Williamson? The’re a lot of Williamsons in my country.’ His accent was different from my tongue. I could understand him, but I could not speak exactly the way Mr MacPhee spoke. Inverness or Skye was me, or Argyll. But I’ll try to get as near to what the man said as possible. He said, ‘Hev ye horses, boy?’

  I said, ‘Aye, we’ve a couple of beasts there. This is my cousin.’

  ‘Oh, this is yir cousin, aye. Come in, man, come in.’

  John said, ‘No, we dinnae want to go in.’ We felt kind o shan, kind o strange. We’d never been in his kind of gelly before in our life. Well, we didn’t want to go into the man’s camp. You see, this is a traveller thing. If I had known the man before, we would have went into his tent. And we weren’t known to the man. You see, it wasn’t our policy! We didn’t want to be friends with the man and we didn’t want to go into his camp, because we didn’t know anything about the man in the first place. No, it’s not the case o not being sure. I mean, the man couldn’t hurt us in any way. The man was in his fifties and he had two sons. But it was too much too soon, too forward. As I’d said, ‘We’d never have done it with him.’ I wouldn’t tell him my name first, you see. It was too forward. But that was his way in his country! We didn’t want to make the man feel bad. And then we didn’t want to go against our own tradition either. He was one of our own, but he was a foreigner. His traditions weren’t ours and our traditions weren’t his. We didn’t want to feel that we were imposing on the man in any way. Up in his own place when he met his own type of folk it was expected of him to bring his people into his place, into his tent. We didn’t want to see what was in the man’s tent in no way! He wanted to treat us like we were his friends, but we couldn’t be anything like that, because we weren’t. We were paying him a respect in our own way, expecting him to respect us for what we were too. This is a code among travellers which is a very droll thing.

  He said, ‘Come in, boy. Sit doon, man, sit doon.’ He was free and kind hearted. But if John and I had walked into that man’s camp, then we would have destroyed all that we live for.

  I said, ‘No, mister, we’ve things tae dae!’ This is the excuse we made. ‘We’ve got horses.’ The understanding was, you could talk outside the tent and talk at the outside fire until you became accustomed to him, till the man really understood what you were and what he was before you entered his premises. The thing that I was trying to do, you must understand, was to give the man the impression that he had no reason to ask me in. He didn’t ask me in because he wanted me; but rather because it was his tradition, because I was a stranger. So in my mind I said, ‘I dinnae want to go into the man’s camp no way.’ And he was pleased by me no accepting this offer! By him knowing me through that way, when I never accepted his invitation, we became great friends! Because deep in his mind he knew that I knew the same thing as he.

  Now, if I had walked into this man’s camp he would have changed, ‘Oh, what kind o gadgie is that? This must be some kind o flattie or something,’ he would have said. He had to ask, he was testing us. He had the same code as I had in his own way.

  He said, ‘They call me Dealin Isaac MacPhee. What kind o beasties youse got, man?’

  ‘Oh, a wee bit o pony,’ I said, ‘It’s no up to much.’

  Man,’ he said, ‘I’ve a braw beastie! I’ve fetched her doon fae Inverness. I got it in Inverness. She’s a braw beastie! What kind o beast youse got?’

  ‘Ah, a Shelt,’ I said. ‘It’s only a—’

  Oh,’ he said, ‘it’s only a wee Shelt.’

  ‘Aye, I’ve only got a wee Shelt.’ It was fourteen hands! If you had it today you couldn’t buy it for two hundred pound.

  ‘What kind o beast you got, laddie?’ he said to John.

  ‘I’ve only a wee bit thing. Ach, it’s no much, it’s a wee bit dottled. Just for shiftin the camp aboot.’

  ‘Man,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a braw beastie. Youse laddies, young men like you in these days . . .’ He was a bit forward ‘. . . man, you want to get a haud o a guid beast. If you want to keep a beast, a guid ane or a bad ane, it eats the same grass, ye ken.’ He never saw our ponies. We never saw his. He said, ‘I’m tellin youse laddies, if you want to keep a Sheltie or keep a bit o a beastie, man, you want to keep a guid ane. It eats the same grass.’

  John said, ‘I believe that, maister, but it’s no easy gettin a guid ane.’

  ‘Ach,’ he said, ‘guid anes is as easy tae get as bad anes. Never kept a bad horse in my life!’

  ‘Oh,’ John said, ‘I believe that, maister!’ Now John was very, very quick tempered. And he could fight like big guns. I had to control him many times, though he was in the wrong. If he thought somebody was trying to pull his leg, he just jumped the gun. And I had to try and control him.

  I said, ‘Stall, man, stall. The gadgie’s no mangin naething at all, din ye jan?’27

  ‘Man,’ he says, ‘I would like to have a look up at your Shelties.’

  ‘Ach, we hev nothing tae look at, maister,’ John said. ‘Me and my brother, we have nothing tae look at. Only two auld ponies that we use.’

  ‘Man, I’ve got a great beast! In fact,’ he said, ‘it’s the finest beast ever I had in my life. And they tell me there an awfae dealin men aboot this country.’

  ‘Oh, aye, I meet them every day, maister.’ This was John’s way. And he’d begun to draw apart now. Now he had come to his full course. John began to back out. Now Mr MacPhee was a nice old soul. But I could see by John’s idea that John had had enough. When he cried the man ‘maister’ I kent he’d come his full score. ‘Maister,’ he said, ‘if you’re lookin for dealin I’m sure ye’ll get bings. In Forfar or Blairgowrie, the berries and all the places. If you want and you’ve got a good beast, everybody’s after good horses, maister. But we cannae afford good horses.’

  ‘But there’s only one thing,’ he said, ‘I’m worried about in your country, man – fleas.’

  John said, ‘What, maister?’

  ‘Fleas, man,’ he said. ‘They bother our horses here. They eat their eyes oot, man, the fleas. And up where we come from there nae such a thing. The fleas eat the poor auld horses een oot, man, eat their een.’

  ‘Oh,’ John said, ‘they eat their een oot, aye. Well, maister . . .’

  ‘But,’ he said, ‘eh, you wouldn’t mind me, haen a look at your bit Shelties?’28

  ‘Oh,’ John said, ‘no!’

  He said, ‘Here!’ he cried the two laddies, ‘gang doon, man, and bring up the mare! Eh, the laddies here is a wee bit interested, and they’ve never seen a good horse for a long while.’

  John said, ‘I’m gaunna mar him!’

  I said, ‘Stall mangin! Stall, man. Stall, gadgie, nae mang!’

  And Mr MacPhee was dark in the skin. His face full of blackheads, but he was a lovable soul! And his wife was a nice cratur. She had long, dark hair, and he had two wee lassies and two laddies. He had two gellies, built two camps for the laddies and himself. ‘Hey boy
s!’ he says. ‘Gang doon and bring up the mare! Let these boys hae a wee bit show here o a guid beast!’

  The laddies went away down. Now, when you went down the old road, there was another road down the other way. That’s where me and John had bypassed. We went straight down the road when we’d tethered our ponies. But they had turned a quick left and took it further down in a clear bit, a branch off the road. John and I are sitting. I’m cracking to him. We never went in the tent, but sat with our backs against the camp.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Mr MacPhee said, ‘and the laddies’ll bring up the beast, the mare. We waited a wee while. The two laddies weren’t very tall. And were thin, as if poorly reared. Not for wrestling at all! We were fit, could have sprung over a seventy-foot fence. But they were lazy-looking, as if they lacked something. You could see it. They weren’t stupid in any way. We called it poorly brought up. But we never went in the man’s camp so we couldn’t explain how the children were reared.

  But here the laddies were coming with this thing. And one pulled it over his shoulder on a rope. A cloot was tied on the horse’s face! And holes in the cloot for its eyes, and holes for its lugs. A white cloot tied over its head for the fleas! There were an awful fleas. And he pulled it up. It was about fifteen hands high. And I’ll guarantee you, there is more flesh on that poker for the fire that what was on its body. If you could have went down its ribs, you would have went rick-tick-tick-tick-tick! It couldn’t eat, it couldn’t chew your finger. A mummy! He brought it up. And it had every complaint under the sun. Its two eyes were sunk in, and it had two holes at the top of its eyebrows, the temple holes, sunk back in.

  ‘Ower here, laddies,’ he said, ‘bring me the beast! Bring ower the beast.’ But he had a beautiful cart and harness. Oh, the man had a beautiful cart. But he had this mummy. Now he was trying to take us for mugs, trying to get one over us, ‘wee young laddies’, ye see! And he thought he was in the score, thought he had a couple of fools at hand. And he brought up this thing, a ‘crocodile’, that’s what John called it.