The Horsieman

by Ducan Williamson

  ‘Stall yir mangin,’29 John says to me. ‘Stall, man, stall, laddie! Stall!’ We were mangin cant to ourselves, so he couldn’t hear us. Aye, he would have understood, but we didn’t let him hear us. ‘Stall yir mangin. Me and you’re gaunna have good fun right in a minute!’

  The horse had two white feet in the front. This made it look worse. And its throat pipe stuck out. Now this is a complaint. And you know, there was nothing on the chest bones. You could see the throat pipe going right through between its legs. It was a knacker’s case! And every step it took, the laddies pulled it over their backs. A crocodile! Its hip joints were sticking out. It couldn’t chew your finger. The tinkers called a horse that couldn’t eat a ‘mummy’ because its front teeth were too long. But he brought it up. And it was chestnut-coloured. That made it worse. Red chestnut. If it had been black or any other colour it wouldn’t have been half so bad. Travellers hated a chestnut horse of any description. The’re no traveller would take a chestnut horse, suppose it was like gold. It was the colour, you know . . . the burkers were red headed. The chestnut was unclassed, supposed to be unlucky. And when Mr MacPhee saw the laddies come with it he rose to his feet.

  Well, man,’ and he stuck his fingers in his jacket. ‘Well, boys, what dae ye think? Isn’t that a beautiful animal?’

  ‘Oh, maister!’ John was keen. John was a master of horses. The laddie was born and reared with horses, since he could creep. His father had horses before he was born. And when his father died he worked with horses, broke them in, bought them and swapped and dealed. He was moich on horses! ‘Oh,’ John said, ‘maister, it’s no a bad auld beast. It would do onybody’s turn, maister.’

  He said, ‘Isn’t she a beauty?’

  ‘Oh aye, maister, a beauty,’ he said. I never said a word. I never spoke.

  ‘Eh, you wouldnae be feelin like a bit o a deal, man?’ he says to John. I’m Dealin Isaac MacPhee. I swap and deal and fight like big guns!’

  ‘Oh, maister, I believe you can!’ Now I knew John. Since he was sixteen, and I knew he had taken enough and he wasn’t going to go anymore. ‘Oh well,’ John said, ‘maister, the horse I’ve got, maister, I dinnae think you’ll have much interest in it. It’s no nae better than yir ain.’

  ‘Oh man,’ he says, ‘a strange face is ae worth a bit o difference, man!’ He was dying to get rid of it, you see. And he’s treating us like mugs. But I knew. I was ahead of him, a hundred years ahead. He said, ‘Eh, you wouldna mind me seein your bit animals?’

  ‘Oh no,’ John said, ‘maister. You can see wir animals if you want.’

  ‘Laddie, tie it up to the fence, man!’ Mr MacPhee said. ‘And we’ll gang doon and we’ll hae a look at this beast.’ So he walked down with us. And it was Woodbine he smoked, and he gave us a fag. ‘We’ll go doon and see yir beasties.’

  I said, ‘Aye.’ And I had this pony. It was three years old and you could have poured a dish of water between its shoulders, and it would have run down between its back, its tail. Its hips were that bowed. It could have drained down its back, it was that fat. It was chocolate brown, and as quiet as a mouse. Its feet were broad. The weans could go in between its legs, any wee wean could.

  And John had this other pony called Tootsie. She was a good old horse. He’d had it for two years. She wanted an eye, but, oh Jesus, she could trot for fun! You could never yoke her wrong. You stopped at the door of a shop and said, ‘Tootsie, sit there!’ She would sit till you came back. And his mother could take it any place, or anybody could take it. It was an old friend.

  Mr MacPhee came walking down. And John was making up his mind to hit him. I had to stop John from hitting Mr MacPhee. I stopped. My horse was first. She was tethered first on the old road. And the laddies came with us. Mr MacPhee said, ‘Is that yir bittie o a pony, man? Is that yir Shelt?’

  I said, ‘That’s my Shelt. That’s mine. A thing I got fae an old man in Fife. I dinnae ken much aboot it. I dinnae ken much aboot horses, maister. In fact, I never had much horses in my day.’

  ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘It’s no a bad bit cuddy. It’s kind o fat. It’s bound to be lazy.

  ‘Ah, maister,’ I said, ‘to tell you the God’s truth, it’s no very fast. It definitely is lazy. You hit it nail on the head.’ (It wasn’t lazy at all!) So he wasn’t interested.

  He walked down to see John’s pony. John’s was about fourteen hands, fourteen two. Aw, a beautiful roan. A strawberry roan, but it had one eye. And it had a habit of looking round at you. The horse had to turn its head. Now John had a bad eye himself. In later years he got his eye taken out. But from birth John had this bad eye and it was coloured, and bigger than the other one. He was only a young lad, unmarried. Oh, a beautiful man, a handsome laddie when he was young! He had this bonnie curly hair. But he had this bad eye. And oh Jesus, he could fight! Mr MacPhee came down. And John’s pony had a wild way of looking at you. It had to turn with its full head round when you came up to it, because it only had one eye. The four of us came down. John kent the pony. It never bothered with him. But when it saw the strangers it hurled round its head.

  Mr MacPhee said, ‘Is that yir pony, laddie?’

  And John said, ‘Aye, that’s my pony, maister, aye.’

  ‘Well, it’s no a bad bit beastie. That is a good beastie. Laddie, son, I’ll tell you something, that’s a good beast!’

  John said, ‘Aye, maister, it’s no bad.’

  ‘Are ye no better,’ he said, ‘tyin a cloot on its ee! If the fleas gets in there, man, they’ll make an awfae mess o it!’

  Now if anybody, if you mentioned ‘eye’ to John, because he had a bad eye, he couldn’t take this. Every laddie who knew John, and everybody knew John, had this thing – you never mentioned ‘eyes’ because he hated this eye he had. He was only seventeen. But he was completely blind in this eye. If you joked with him or anything it was all right. But when the gadgie said to him, ‘Ye should tie a cloot, man. That’s only got one, a bad ee, man. Its ee is nae good, don’t ye see? Ye’d better put a cloot on it for the fleas!’ The man meant no harm. John couldn’t take this.

  He said, ‘Maister, I’ll tell ye something. You get up that road! Look, and take that object, braxy, you’ve got, that thing up there, that crocodile! That mummy, maister, you’ve got up there, and that thing with the cloots on its face.’ John says, ‘Look, you go and tie that! Tie as many cloots on its een as you want. Dinnae try and tell me tae put nae cloots on my horse’s ee. And tak that crocodile you’ve got up there, and tie as many cloots as you want on its een, but dinnae tell me what tae dae wi mine!’

  The man never said a word. Never said a word.

  ‘Come on!’ John said to me. We left him. Walked up. He came back and he was fuming at his mouth, fuming! His nerves were up. He was raised up. That was him started for the night. John. There was no satisfying him. You couldn’t talk from then on. Oh, many’s a fight he and I got into – he got me into many’s a fight just for this carry on. This was him raised. His mother tried to satisfy him, but it was no good. ‘I’m goin down to kill him. I’m goin down right noo,’ he said. I’m gaunna tear the tent atop of him. I’m gaunna mak him . . .’

  I said, ‘Man, calm yirsel, man! The man wasnae referrin tae you at all!’

  The next morning on Glamis Green – we never went out of our camp till then. But when we got up Mr MacPhee was away, packed up and gone. There were three of us, including John’s brother. The man thought when John went off so quick, off the fan, the man thought we were looking for trouble. But the man didn’t mean any harm.

  JOHNIE O MONYMUSK

  Johnie he got up one fine mornin

  Cauld water to wash his hands,

  Say’n, ‘Gang bring tae me my twa grey dogs

  They are bound wi iron bands-o

  They are bound wi iron bands.’

  ‘O Johnie, O Johnie,’ his mother she cried

  ‘Tae the green woods dinna, dinna gang!

  O Johnie for yir mother’s sake

  Son, a-h
untin, son, dinna, dinna gang!’

  But Johnie buskit up his fine broad bow his arras ay sae lang

  And he paid nae heed tae his mother’s words

  Tae the green woods he would gang- o

  Tae the green woods he would gang.

  And then he spied a grey dun deer

  Comin doon by the green wood-side

  And he fired on the grey dun deer

  And he wounded her in her pride-o

  He wounded her in her pride.

  And then there comes a silly auld man

  Comes doon by the green wood-side

  And he is awa tae the king’s foresters

  The seven foresters for to see-o

  The seven foresters for to see.

  ‘What news, what news, you silly old man,

  What news do you bring today?

  What news, what news, you silly old carle,

  What news do you bring to me-o?

  What news do you bring to me?’

  He said, ‘As I cam doon the merry green wood

  And through thon peat and bog,

  There I spied a handsome man

  He was a-huntin wi his dogs-o

  He was a-huntin wi his dogs.’

  Then up and spake the first forester,

  A man amongst them aa,

  ‘If Johnie is a-huntin in our merry green wood

  Nae further dare we draw-o

  Nae further dare we draw.’

  Then up and spake the second forester,

  An eldry man was he,

  ‘If Johnie is a-huntin in our merry green wood

  We’d better let him be-o

  We’d better let him be.’

  Then up and spake the third forester

  A brother’s son was he,

  ‘If Johnie is a-huntin in our merry green wood,

  We may gang and we’ll gar him dee-o30

  We may gang and we’ll gar him dee.’

  Then up and spake the fourth forester,

  A bright young spark was he,

  ‘Gang get yir bows my brothers bold

  And come along wi me-o

  And come along wi me!’

  Noo Johnie placed his back against an oak

  And his fit against a stane,

  And he fired on the seven foresters

  And he slew them aa but ane-o

  And he slew them aa but ane.

  But then an arra it pierced him deep

  Comin doon through the green wood-side

  And betwixt the waters and the wood

  It was there O Johnie died-o

  It was there O Johnie died.

  Now Johnie his great big bow lies broke

  And his twa grey dogs lie slain,

  And his body lies in Monymusk

  And his huntin days are gane-o

  And his huntin days are gane.

  Traditional

  CHAPTER TEN

  SILVER AND THE SHAN GURIE

  My cousin and I always returned to Fife for the winter months, about the beginning of the harvest time in August. Life was hard in Fife in 1948 for the travellers, because there were so many families, about forty-fifty, wandering through the country, everybody after the same thing trying to make a living to the best of their ability. But the only pleasure they had in those days was that camping was easier gotten. You could camp any place, on any old road, any old piece of wood, any old quarry, any old layby. And it was all mostly horses; travellers didn’t have any cars in that time.

  Things were really hard. The price of non-ferrous metals, which the traveller depended on was just rock bottom. And rags were very poor (when we collected and sold them for recycled wool). Then the advantage in Fife was the settled community of non-traveller folk kept ponies. There were dealers in Kirkcaldy, fishmen in Kirkcaldy, coalmen, rag-and-bone men, stick men and a lot of pig farmers – all these folk had horses. Well, they all needed to change their horses back and forward, and there was a blacksmith’s shop in every small village you came to. It was no bother getting an old horse shod. And then there were so many rag stores in Fife: one in Leslie, three in Methil and two in Cupar. These were the merchants who were non-travellers, who had a settled base and bought stuff that the travellers collected.

  But you had to hawk it; then you had to collect it, then sort it, then take it to these stores, and you got very little for it when you got there. It was all done by horse – you needed a horse, without one you couldn’t do these things. Only other thing was, you had to go and take a job on a farm till you got the price of a horse. Horses then were cheap. But even a little money was hard to get. And if you had a decent horse of any description you wouldn’t have it very long, because so many folk wanted horses back in the 1940s. You only got a certain distance along the road when you were stopped, maybe four and five times in the one day by the local dealers asking you, ‘Would you like a swap?’

  Well, you would naturally swap and deal with them. You got maybe a pound about, maybe two, and every time you got a swap you got a poorer horse till you were back where you started, till you had something that was worth nothing! And then you had the Inspectors of Cruelty to Animals who were down upon the travellers and horses. They stopped you along the road, and the police were authorised to stop you if they saw your horse was bad and they thought it was lame, or thought it was maybe cut under the saddle. Because some travellers hardly ever looked after a harness, and they did get wet. Travellers never polished their harness every day and kept them soft, so sometimes the horses did get cut. But the travellers had their own way of curing these things – that’s another part of the story.

  In Fife in the 1940s there were dealers who could drive from the Coaltown o Balgonie, about nine miles from Kirkcaldy to catch the fish markets in Anstruther with a horse, and drive back in the same day. Now that’s a good journey! And they hawked fish off their floats and carts with these horses. If you had a pony that was kind of fast, a trotting horse of any description, then they pestered the life out of you till you came and had a deal. And if you had a horse that was thick and strong, then naturally the pig feeders who carted broch and these big bins of swill for the pigs were after it from you. But it was all in the trade. Everybody was trading among each other with horses. You swapped and dealed, maybe three-four times a week, maybe twice a day. But you didn’t always get the good deal. There’s nobody alive always got the best of every deal!

  But the main thing the travellers like myself did, when I got a wee bit o knowledge about horses, we went after the unbroken stuff, the young horses that never were in carts, or something that was wild. A horse that wouldn’t stand or one that would maybe kick the cart. And especially the unbroken two-three-year-olds that nobody had bothered with. We got them, broke them in and taught them how to stand, and we trained them with the best of our ability. Then we swapped them away to the local folk about the district.

  The very first good horse I got was during the winter of 1949. My daughter Edith had been born. Money was awfully hard to get. I mean, you were lucky if you worked on a farm all day taking in the harvest from seven o’clock in the morning till five at night for fifty pence a day, ten shillings. Now that was barely two-pound-ten a week. You had to keep yourself off that and your wife, that’s if you were working. If you weren’t working and you were away doing the hawking and you sellt paper flowers or wooden flowers or made baskets or collected rags, if you didn’t use a horse you had to carry the rags on your back and walk with them. Now you carried a hundredweight of rags on your back in these days, and you were lucky if you got three shillings for that hundredweight, the equivalent of fifteen pence today.

  Now if somebody had a horse and you tried to buy it, especially among travellers, they would say, ‘Well, I would sell it to ye, but ye ken the position I’m in – I’m the same as yirsel – I need it because otherwise it’s like cuttin aff yir nose tae spite yir face. So if ye had something I wad gie ye a swap!’ But ye had tae have a horse o some description.

  So anyw
ay, the first good horse I ever got in my life, I’d managed to save up fifteen pound after a long struggle. Two-three times I had attempted to buy one, but every time something else was always needed. I had kept putting it off because my brother-in-law used to shift my bits of stuff along with his. But I had made up my mind I was going to buy this yoke come hell or high water! I would do without anything else, I was going to buy this horse. And we were staying out at a place they called The Rosie down near Buckhaven.

  My cousin says to me, ‘I know where there’s a wee yoke we could buy fir ye. It’s no very big but it might dae ye a turn till ye get something else.’ So we drive up to a place they call the Star o Markinch. And there’s an old man who kept pigs. He’d sold off his pigs and he had his wee yoke that he had used to gather the broch, the buckets of swill. We walked down and the old man was in his garden. We told him what we were wanting.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a pony and a float and harness for sale. But I’m needin a good lot fir hit.’ He took us round and we had a look at it. The horse was standing in the stable in beautiful straw. But it was fat, very fat. And it wasn’t very old, a mare about seven or eight years old. I asked him how much he wanted for it. He wanted fourteen pound for the whole yoke.

  Now I really knew in my heart I was going to get it. But there’s no way in the world I was going to give him fourteen pound for it. Because if you ever had any deals with horses or listened to any dealings, and you had got the same experience I had being among dealing men for a while – you knew no man ever gets what he asks for – especially when it comes to a swap or a deal! And he knew in his own mind he was asking me fourteen, when I knew he would maybe take twelve. This was the idea, you always ask more than what you’re expecting.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘Is it quiet?’

  ‘Oh, it’s quiet, very quiet,’ he said.

  So I said, ‘Is it a good worker?’