‘Oh, it’s a good worker. I was usin it. I’ve had it fir about a year.’ And it was terribly fat. He showed me the harness. I was pleased with it. And he showed me the wee float and I was pleased with it.
My cousin said, ‘That would do ye a turn, that would shift ye till ye get something else. It looks all right to me.’
‘Bring it oot,’ I tellt the old man.
So the old man went in the stable, and the horse was in a wee loose box. He brought the horse out. It was made like an Aberdeen Angus bull, short tail, a mare. It was only about twelve and a half hands high. But it was that fat it would barely come in a barn door!
‘Well,’ I said to him, ‘tae tell ye the truth, old man, I dinnae hae much money but I would like to buy yir wee yoke.’ I checked its feet, and they were all right. It had a bit of founder, but it had went kind of dry and wouldn’t do it any harm. Its feet were a bit curled at the front, but were well shod. I said, ‘What’s the least you would tak fir it?’
He said, ‘I told ye I want fourteen pound fir it.’
‘I’ll gie ye eleven pound fir it,’ I said. ‘Come on, hold yir hand then, I’ll give ye eleven pound. That’s all it’s worth – what is yir auld harness worth? Ye can buy the old straps o harness like that fir a pound a piece in any dealer’s in Kirkcaldy.’
‘I know, laddie,’ he said, and then he got on with the patter. ‘But ye see it fits the pony, it’s jist the ideal thing fir the pony and the wee float’s nice and handy. It’s a good wee yoke and I wis jist considerin in my mind whether to sell it or no. Maybe I’ll get another pig or two at the back end o the year and I’ll prob’ly need it.’ Pig men collected cabbage leaves in the shops and old tatties, and the swill to keep the pigs in meat. They fed the pig all winter, and when it got fat they sold it in the market for a big profit. You could buy young pigs cheap. And there were dozens of these pig feeders round about the district on small-holdings. But he hemmed and he hawed and said, ‘No.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’ll tell ye what I’ll do with ye. I’ll go another pound, I’ll give ye twelve.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘ye’ll hev tae come a wee bit more than that.’ Now if that had been a traveller having a deal it would have been a different story. Or a horse dealer. We would have been spitting and slapping hands, but this old man had never done much dealing in his life.
So I said to him, ‘Well, I’m gaunna give ye one more offer. Before I go. In fact I’ve no made up my mind. But seein I’ve seen it, I’m no much interested. It looks kind o slow to me, kind o lazy.’
‘No, it’s no lazy!’ he said. ‘Noo it would be very handy fir ye!’ He went out with all the patter.
‘Ach,’ I said, ‘no. Forget it. I’m no wantin it. I winna bother aboot it.’
‘Well, come here noo, dinnae gae awa like that, laddie! Come on back here and I’ll tell ye what I’ll dae wi ye. Ye’ll gie me thirteen pound fir it, fir the yoke! Noo I’m droppin a pound.’
I said, ‘No. I tellt ye what I offered ye. I offered ye twelve. Well, just fir the sake o a deal, I’m gaunna give ye one more bid and one more bid only. I’m gaunna give ye twelve pound ten, take it or leave it!’
He said, ‘Well, I’ll take it, and ye’re gettin a good bargain.’
So I paid him his money and we yoked it up. Now we had to go back to the Rosie Row, a camping place for travellers for many’s a year. And this was summertime. We had bought this wee pony from him at about three o’clock in the afternoon. By the time we got it yoked up and out on the main road, half a mile away, it took exactly four and a half hours to get home. It was the laziest thing you ever saw in your life! It would walk at a snail’s pace, It wouldn’t trot or wouldn’t gallop. It would do nothing. This was my first real horse and I’m pulling it over my shoulder. Now I had to walk into Kennoway, down into Windygates and from there to the Rosie Row. By the time I got back it must have been seven o’clock at night.
Well, I came in and a lot of travellers were there, and they all had horses. So they gathered round. This was a strange face. And my first horse, everybody knew. Some said, ‘It’s no a bad wee pony, ach it’ll dae. I’ve had worse many’s a time. Okay, laddie, it’ll dae ye a turn, it’ll shift yir camp,’ and all this patter.
‘Ach,’ I said, ‘it’ll dae fir a wee while,’ but I wasn’t pleased with it. I was far from being pleased. So I said to my cousin, ‘It’s definitely lazy.’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘it’s past bein lazy.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘tae tell ye the truth, it’s no gaunna be much good tae me. I couldna keep it. It’ll have tae go.’
So the next day everybody was packing up to shift their tents and their horses. They pulled out on the road. We were all bound for the Coaltown o Balgonie, another old road. So they all set sail and I had to walk. I walked, bit by the head, and by the time I got into the Coaltown everybody had their tents up and their fires going. They’d all had their tea. But I managed to get there and get the tent up. My cousin was there, gone long before me for hours. And I was cursing myself for buying this thing. It wasn’t its fault it was born lazy, but there was nothing in the world you could do, hitting it wouldn’t have made any difference. By the time I’d got in, got my tent up and went for a bit coal and got the fire going it must have been eight o’clock at night. But I staked it out on a nice bit of green grass and gave it a bit clean up.
I said to my cousin, ‘I’ll have tae get rid o this, swap it away.’
He says, ‘Take yir time, dinnae be in a hurry. Wait till somebody comes. If ye go and try to offer it to somebody, ye’ll get nothing fir it. Somebody’ll make a fool o ye. The wee harness and the wee cairt’s aa right.’
But two-three days passed and I’m getting sicker as the days go with this thing, this pony. So it was a Sunday and we were having a game of quoits. Travellers always played quoits on Sunday. When up the old road comes this man on horseback and he had on riding breeches and long-legged riding boots. And he was riding this Arab mare about sixteen hands, snow white it was. It was that white it was kind o silvery, and it was prancing! It was reining, passing the tents and blowing at the tents with the fright.
John says to me, ‘Look at that horse! Isn’t that a beautiful animal?’ And all the traveller men were out to see this horse.
So the man jumped down and he was leading it, and it was prancing. He was a non-traveller man from the town. All the traveller men came up, admiring this big horse. A beautiful horse and its skin was that smooth from being inside a stable. It had funny eyes; they were red. I think it was off the Arab strain and about ten year old.
‘That’s a beautiful horse you’ve got, mister!’ I said.
‘Oh aye, it’s a nice pony,’ he says. Youse hes got some nice ponies yirsel there.’
I said, ‘Aye, some nice ponies.’
So this man said to me, ‘I bet ye this horse o mine could give ye a hurl if it was in a cairt.’
‘Aye,’ I said, ‘I believe it would!’
But he said, ‘I’ll tell ye something. Hit’s never been in a cairt in its life. And it wadnae be much use to youse kind o boys. I’m lookin fir a pony.’
So some of the men said to him, ‘What are ye gaunna dae with a pony when ye’ve got a pony there? That’s a guid enough horse, what ye’re usin it for, your job.’ He was very civil to talk to, this man, because he knew a lot of the travellers, dealed with them before. He was only a young man in his thirties. I was to become well known to him, Mr Sinclair, later after that. But this was the first time I’d met him.
He said, ‘I’m lookin fir a pony fir my wee sister.’
It was my cousin spoke first, ‘Well, there’s only one pony here that would suit yir wee lassie; that’s it tied tae the fence doon there.’
So the man took his white horse and he took the reins and tied them round the fence. ‘Come doon, let me have a look at it!’ he says.
So we took him down and this was my fat Sheltie. My cousin said, ‘How would that do yir wee sister?’
‘Oh, that’s a nice wee pony, very quiet.’ He petted it. He went round about it, looked at it up and down and up and in.
I said, ‘There’s a cairt and harness tae go with it if ye’re interested.’
‘Well, I’m no really interested in the cairt and harness,’ he said, ‘but I suppose it would come in handy in case I ever need to yoke it for something roond aboot the place.’ He had a wee pendicle in Thornton. So he said, ‘Would ye sell hit?’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘we never usually sell them and lea wirsels stuck. We usually swap. Hae ye nothing I could gie ye a swap tae?’
He said, ‘Aye, I’ll gie ye a swap tae my mare, my big white mare.’
John says to me in cant, ‘Bing the prank fae the gadgie! Tak it! You tak it, tak that horse.’
So I considered it a wee bit. I said to myself, ‘What would I do with that?’ I gave it a bit of thought. I couldn’t put it in a cart. So while the gadgie was talking to the other men and admiring the wee horse, John says to me, ‘Look, if you could swap fir that, you get that! We’ll put that in the cairt, we’ll break it in. It’s quiet as a moose, the horse is fresh. I bet ye put that in a cairt, ye’ve nae trouble,’ he says to me where the man couldn’t hear him.
So I said to Mr Sinclair, ‘Right, what kind o swap would ye need?’
‘Well, I need a few pound aboot wi ye.’
‘Aha, ye’ll no get nae pound aboot wi me!’ I said. ‘That’s a complete yoke. I was thinkin I need a bit money aboot fae ye, fir a complete yoke tae a ridin pony. A ridin pony, ye ken, is no much good tae hus.’
‘Well, what would you think?’
I said, ‘Well, gie me yir horse and five pound and I’ll gie ye the yoke!’
John says tae me, ‘Stall, stall, man, canny, stall! The gadgie, ye’ll sicken the gadgie.’
I said, ‘No, I’ll no sicken the gadgie.’
He said, ‘I wouldnae gie ye five pound, but I’ll gie ye three pound and my pony fir yir yoke.’
I said, ‘Haud out yir hand, it’s a deal! I’ll tak yir horse.’
He takes his saddle off and his bridle off, and I get a rope and tie it round this big horse’s neck. Now I had to tie it up to a tree, because there’s no way in the world you’re going to put it in a tether. We yoked the Sheltie to Mr Sinclair, and away he went with it, leading it.
Cousin said to me, ‘You got yirsel a good pony now. That was a quick deal ye got from him! Ye got money aboot?’
‘Aye, I got money aboot. I got three pound. You would rather me gied him money? Is it no better tae gie me the money?’
Well,’ he said ‘there’s something wrong wi that pony, when he would gie ye money alang wi it.’
‘Well, I dinna ken if there’s something wrang with it or no, but it’s mine noo. And I’m gaunna get harness fir it and I’m gaunna put it in the cairt.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ll gie ye all the help I can.’
I didn’t have any cart and harness; I gave the wee man the lot. So all the rest of the traveller men gathered round and some said, ‘That’s a good pony.’ They checked it up and down. We couldn’t find a fault with it any way. It had the most beautiful feet that you ever saw and it was fat, and it wasn’t lazy. It was prancing when you took it on the rope. Some of the men were saying, ‘God bless me, if that was on a cairt, that wad gie ye a right hurl.’
I said, ‘It’s goin on a cairt and I’m keepin it. I’m no sellin it till I get a cairt fir it!’ So I tied it up to a tree and hand fed it. I cut grass for it and I did everything with it I could. The next day I borrowed my cousin’s yoke and I drove into Kirkcaldy, the Gallatown, and I went to this old dealing man. And I tellt him, ‘I got a pony. I’m needin a set o harness fir hit.’ The old man had lots of sets hanging up. He sellt and dealt in harness and ponies forbyes.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘there a set there that might suit ye.’ But it was a van harness, a co-operative harness. Travellers didn’t like them very much. It wasn’t a padded saddle, but a small saddle that just sat on the horse’s back. But it was good for the horse because it let the air in below the horse’s back. They were less expensive to buy. But everything was complete, the reins, the bridle, the breeching, everything, and it would just suit this horse I had.
So I said, ‘What will ye need fir that?’
He said, ‘I was wantin two pound fir them.’
‘I’ll gie ye thirty shillings fir them, aa the money I’ve got.’
‘Gie me another croon, thirty-five shillings, and you can have them.’ So I gave the old man the thirty-five shillings and I flung them in the back of the cart. I got some messages and drove home.
So I landed back in the Coaltown and everybody saw me coming in. And the travellers were after their tea by the time I’d got back. They all came up. They saw this good set of harness. Everybody said what a nice harness they were, how strong. I said, ‘Dae fine, it’ll suit me fine.’ So we cracked away for a while and I said, ‘I’ll go and see my horse.’ I’d led it up the roadside, let it pick here and there. But it was awfully feart of things that were sitting at the roadside. Some of them were saying, ‘That horse would run away wi you suppose it was yoked.’ Some horses took the idea, if they got the bit in their teeth, they would set sail, run away.
So the next day was a Sunday. My cousin said to me, ‘What do you think? We’ll put the harness on that horse, see what happens.’
I said, ‘The best thing we could dae!’ So I went up, took the bridle up with the blinders. And I had this rope around its neck. I pulled it up. And as soon as it saw me with the bridle, it went right up in the air above me, stood up on its hind legs. So we put a loop on its nose and pulled it down, and got the bridle on. Then we got the saddle on it and we put on the britchen, put the cripper on. It wouldn’t kick, that was one thing about it. So we walked it up and down, let it hear the noise of the harness rattling on it. But it didn’t seem to bother about that.
Cousin said to me, ‘That horse has been harnessed before.’
I said, ‘No.’
He said, ‘What do you say we put it on the float? We’ll take a shot o my cairt and we’ll yoke it up. We’ll get some o the rest o the boys tae gie us a hand in case it rears up and flings itself.’ Horses have a habit of flinging themselves on the back of the cart and breaking the shafts, you know. You had to watch them!
I said, ‘No, the best thing we can dae is put it on a log first, let it pull a log, drag it on the ground.’ So I went and we got a couple of logs, big sleepers that were lying down the old railway. We carried them up, put a bit rope round them and made a swingletree, a crossbar, so’s the rope would keep it off the horse’s legs. Got it yoked up on this log, and I took it by the head, led it. It had the weight of the log to pull. It started to pull. So I did this every time I yoked it: up and down that road, and I gave it two good days on this log till the sweat was coming from it. By this time it wasn’t as good looking a horse as when I’d got it! Its coat was all ruffled and there were spots of dirt on it. Its mane was all fuzzy and its tail was all fuzzy. It was silvery-coloured, and we called this big mare ‘Silver’. When she was lying down she was laying on the wet ground, and you could see the big wet mark on her hip.
I said to my cousin, ‘It’s gaunna be an awfa horse to keep clean.’
‘Dinna worry,’ he said, ‘the horse’ll clean itsel through time. That’ll fall aff it.’ But I had to get a curry-comb and brush and keep this horse clean, because it was so beautiful when the man first came and gave it to us.
But the next day John says, ‘We’ll put it in the float, yoke it up. We’ll take it to the bing fir coal. I’ll sit in the cairt and take the reins, and you lead it. We’ll see how it goes and then you can gradually let it go, and I’ll work it frae the cairt.’ But the only thing that was bothering it was blinders on its eyes. But it went easier with the bridle, because a riding bridle hasn’t got any blinders. So down we go to the old coal works. This is where they cowped all the rubbish out of the pits, and goo
d bits of coal were in among it. We used to gather this for our fires. So he and I put a good load of coal on the float, and I was leading it.
He says to me, ‘Let it go! Stand back fae its head and gie me a shot o the reins. jump on the other side! If anything happens I’ll jump aff and catch it!’ So we jumped up and he gave it a slap with the reins on the hip, and off it went at a trot, this big beast. And we drove right into the camp, past all the travellers right through the muck, right in the road, this big horse in the cart. It was a beautiful animal, and it was going as if it had been in the cart all the days in its life! And I was as proud as punch with this horse. No way in the world was I going to part with this!
Some of the men came up and said, ‘By God, that horse is goin well with you, laddie!’
I said, ‘Aye.’
‘Never thought I would see that animal in a cairt.’ Some said this, some said that and some had a notion to it, you know. I knew I could have had a swap in a minute. But no, I wasn’t going to put it away.
So I went out with my cousin and we hawked about with his yoke. I kept Silver tied and began to learn her on the rope, on the tether. The next day we shifted and went right down the coast to Anstruther. We collected rags, woollens, scrap (non-ferrous metals); along with our tent stuff, you know, we just gathered a puckle here and there. So John and I had got a good load each. It took us three days going down and about three days coming back, because in these days you couldn’t travel far with a horse. You had to camp along the way. You could hawk a wee while at night. And the next weekend we returned once more to the Coaltown o Balgonie, and by this time Silver was as if she had been in a cart all her days.
I said, ‘We’ll go inta Kirkcaldy tae the scrap store tomorrow.’ We had some brass, some copper, some rags and woollens, horsehair. John had put all the camping stuff in his cart. What we used to do, when we were far away from the stores and two travellers were in partnership, like friends of each other, father and son or brother-in-law or two brothers, and they had two yokes: one would take the camping stuff and the other would load the other yoke with all the metals to be sold. So I yoked Silver in this float I’d bought before I’d shifted from an old man in the Coaltown. And we packed up these two carts in a wee place called Upper Largo. We came to the Coaltown back to our same camping place, because I wanted the same tree I had tied my horse up to before! We got our tents up and the next morning we would go to Kirkcaldy with our stuff to sell. This was our week’s work, our collection.
The Horsieman Page 28