The Horsieman

by Ducan Williamson

  While we were saving up the old stuff over the week the women were selling flowers and baskets and things to keep us alive. So we took big Silver in to Kirkcaldy to have a sell-up, and we sat up, drove the whole way in, right through Thornton. And the first man we met was Mr Sinclair, the man who had given us the horse. He stopped us on the road. I jumped off and caught the pony by the head.

  He said, ‘Dinnae tell me you got that beast yoked?’

  I said, ‘Aye, I got it yoked.’

  ‘How long ye got it yoked for noo?’

  ‘Since the day after ye gied me it.’

  ‘Man, man, I’ll tell ye something, laddie! If I could hae done that wi that horse, you would never hae got it.’

  I said, ‘Ye regret—’

  ‘No, no, I’m no regrettin my deal. I’m only sayin, if I could hae done it. But tell me something, how did you manage to get that horse yoked?’

  So my cousin spoke up, ‘That horse was the easiest yoked horse ever we’ve had in wir life! We’ve had some bad anes in wir day, but I hope every ane we get is as easy as that.’ So we go into Kirkcaldy and the first man I meet is the old man who sold me the harness, Jimmie MacLaren. He came out and stopped us. Because these dealers, you know them, you couldn’t mistake them! They wore the polka-dot hanky round their neck crosswise. If he had a whip in his hand, old brown boots and this polka-dot hanky, you knew – a dealer right away! But he was standing cracking to another man when we came up, and I was leading the pony by this time. We were making for Robertson’s in Kirkcaldy.

  Mr MacLaren said, ‘Hello, boys, yese is busy makin yir way on?’

  I said, ‘Aye.’

  ‘Tell me something, would I be wrong sayin that’s Sinclair frae Thornton’s pony you’ve got there?’

  ‘Aye, that’s it.’

  And old Jimmie MacLaren said, ‘Nah, it’s no! That’s no the same horse. I’ve been among horses all my days, lad, and I’ll tell ye something. The’re no a person in Fife could hae yoked thon horse! Because I could hae bocht it, but I couldnae even get it intae the stable the last time tae get in near it!’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’ll tell ye something. He must have changed a lot. There’s the harness ye gev me fir thirty-five shillings on its back. That’s what I wanted it fir!’

  And this man, a Johnstone from Leslie, whom I was to have many deals with later said, ‘I’ll tell ye something, if these boys cannae dae nothing with a horse, there little chance fir me and you doin anything with it!’ So we drove in and sellt our stuff up. That was about the month of April, because the grass was just beginning to come in. You know, Silver was a great horse to me.

  So I had a longing to go to Argyllshire because I had never seen my mother and father since I’d got a wife. Now I had a wife and a baby and a horse. I was wanting to show them that I was getting on fine, and I was going to take this big horse back with me. I said, ‘The’re no way in the world that anybody’s gaunna make me swap till I go to Argyllshire and back.’ I liked it a lot, and I knew along the way from Fife into Perthshire and all the road going back I was going to meet many’s a traveller, and prob’ly I would be needing to have a deal with it. Because I knew I wasn’t going to be very rich. Things were hard on the road; it was for all travellers in these days when you were travelling – you would be forced to deal sometimes when you weren’t wanting to. But I’d made up my mind there was no way in the world I was going to part with big Silver!

  We left the Coaltown o Balgonie on our road to Argyll. It was the end of April and we made our way into Perthshire. Now this horse of mine always kept in the front, and John had a mate too. His was a white one forbyes. My cousin was with me. His horse was a kind of garron he’d swapped for in Fife with an old man Whyte before he’d left. It was a heavy thick-set horse, an old one but a good worker. But it couldn’t keep up with my big horse. When we used to get tired walking, we could all jump up because there was only me and the wife and the bairn. And John and his family could jump up on their cart, and we could drive on making the speed, seven or eight miles an hour setting on the level, and walking on the braes.

  We made our way into Perthshire and we stayed at the end of Perth. There were some travellers camped there with horses. Two or three folk were at me for a swap, but no – I wouldn’t swap this horse away. I was going to take this horse to Argyllshire. So from Perth up to Crieff, into Comrie, up Lochearnhead, we stayed there. Then made our way right over the hill down into Inveraray and back to Furnace where I was born. Now I couldn’t camp in beside my father and mother, so we camped on the Furnace shore, the place where I was born. And by this time Silver was tether-broke and I could tether her out. I wouldn’t need to worry about her, she wouldn’t get her legs caught on the rope or fankled up or anything. And by Silver getting a wee bite o green grass, it began to get bonnier again, getting away from standing in its own dung during the winter and the rough muck in other places. All the camping places were clean – it was summertime coming in. I used to comb Silver’s mane and tail. It was a real picture to look at. But it had this funny red nostrils and red eyes, like a ferret. It was off the Arab strain.

  So my cousin and I landed back. I didn’t go up to see my mother and father that night. I went up the next day. I took Jeannie with me and the bairn, and we had a good time with my mother and father. And he says to me, ‘Oh, ye’re married?’

  I said, ‘Aye.

  The old man said, ‘Ye got a wife and a bairn?’

  ‘Aye.’ Edith had been born in October, six months before.

  And he said, ‘Ye got a horse? Ye finally managed tae get a horse?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘What kind is it?’ I tried to explain to him. ‘Aye, is it a good worker?’

  ‘It goes fine, aye.’

  ‘I’ll come doon on a wee walk tomorrow and see it.’

  I said, ‘Daddy, it’s a white horse. Ye remember auld Princie we had a long time ago when you were workin on the road?’

  He said, ‘Aye, I mind on him fine.’

  ‘Well, he’s a white horse, the same kind o horse as thon one, no as heavy made.’

  ‘Aye, thon was a good horse.’ So we went away home and we got our tea. But true to his word, the next day he came down. And we had a crack to him. He admired this horse. ‘It’s a bonnie animal,’ he said to me.

  ‘Aye, it’s a nice animal.’

  He said, ‘It would cost you a lot o money fir that.’

  ‘No, Faither, tae tell ye the God’s truth, it didna cost me a lot o money. It cost me exactly, no coontin the cairt and harness – I gied twelve pound ten for a wee pony, swapped it away and got three pound aboot – that horse has cost me aboot nine pound ten.’

  ‘Nah,’ he said, ‘ye’re makin fun wi me.’

  ‘No! I’m no makin fun. I’m tellin ye, that’s what it cost me, about nine pound ten.’ That’s what the horse was standin me at.

  ‘Well, I’ll tell ye one thing, ye got a bargain!’ So we sat and cracked for a long while about all kinds of things. He said, ‘Will ye go any further doon by Lochgilphead?’

  ‘No, I don’t think I’m going to Lochgilphead. I’m gaunna mak my way back. My cousin John wants to make wir way back to Barrhead, up by Glasgow fir the thinnin o the neeps. Because you and my brother Jimmie and my sisters, and my brother Jack – there no enough neeps doon that way by Lochgilphead fir everybody. So the wee puckle that’s doon there, you’ve got yir fairms.’ He and my mother used to go to the neep thinning every year. They just stayed in the farm shed and thinned during the days, and he came back to Furnace when he was finished. I said, ‘We’ll go wir way back ower the Rest and Be Thankful, ower the ferry at Erskine and up into Barrhead and Neilston where my cousin used tae thin neeps years ago. And I was there tae before Edith was born. I liked that part, but I didnae hae a pony then.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell ye something,’ he said, ‘ye’ll no go far wi that pony till somebody’ll be wantin it aff ye.’

  The’re a lot o folk wanted i
t aff me already!’

  ‘Ah but jist you watch yirsel,’ he said, ‘and dinnae gie it awa tae onybody the first chance ye get. That’s a good beast!’

  ‘Aye,’ I said, ‘it’s a good beast.’ So he went away home. And the next morning I went and saw my mother before we left. And my cousin and I shifted the next day. We made our way back up by Inveraray.

  Now, there were no smiddies on the road over the Rest. So John and I checked our ponies’ shoes in Inveraray. Two blacksmiths were there at that time. We got our ponies checked, and their shoes seemed to be all right, and we made our way round the head of Loch Fyne into Cairndow. We stayed there for the night. The next morning we made our way up the Rest and Be Thankful. But we were only half roads up the Rest when it started to rain. And it rained and rained and it came down in torrents!

  So I said, ‘John, the first place we come to we’ll have to pull in and get a camp up or everything’s gaunna be soakin.’ But we landed half-roads down the other side of the Rest, and there’s a wee bit of an old church, or an old school. And the door was lying open. I said, ‘Here’s the very place fir hus. We’ll no bother puttin the tents up, we’ll go inta the auld school.’ There was a fireplace in it, just a ruins, but there was a roof and windows, doors and a floor. I said, ‘We’ll gie it a sweep up, make wir beds on the floor, and we can kindle the fire.’

  He says, ‘Fair enough! That’ll be better ’an puttin the tents up when the canvas is wet. It’d be a hell of a job.’ So we tethered our horses out in front, kindled the fire in the old grate and made our wee bite of tea. We weren’t very long there when in came a car. This was two gamekeepers, and they would have us moving out.

  ‘Ye’ll hev tae shift, ye’ve nae right bein in here. This is private property. This is no a campin place fir youse folk.’ And it was still raining.

  I said, ‘I’m no movin the night, fir nobody breathin under the sky. We’re stayin.’

  ‘Well, we’ll go fir the police.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘go fir the police if ye want to go, but I’m no shiftin. I’ve a young baby here seven months old, it’s needin the shelter. You can go fir the police. We’re not doin any harm, only shelterin fir the night. We cannae get wir tents up because it’s too wet.’ So they hemmed and hawed and away they went. But they never came back and the police never came.

  So, it wasn’t a place to stay for long, only a night’s stop. Because there was nothing in the world we could do for ourselves there. So the next morning I got up. We made some tea and things began to dry up. We spread the covers out on the ground to dry and I went to have a look at my horse. I looked at its front foot and I said, ‘There’s something wrong.’ Its shoe was gone, the front shoe. It had got pulled off in some fence, an old wire that was stuck in a bit of old fence sticking in the ground. And the nail holes were burst and it took a good part of the hoof off with it. I said, ‘John, my horse is bare-fitted. What am I gaunnae dae noo?’

  ‘Well,’ he says to me, ‘brother, there’s no a blacksmith’s shop in Arrochar. Nor there’s no one in Luss. I believe the nearest one fae here is doon by Helensburgh in the Cardross, and it’s a long way tae Balloch.’

  ‘Well, what am I gaunnae dae with this horse?’ So, I had a spare wheel for the cart. We took the spare wheel and took out the rubber tube of the inside wheel, and we made a rubber boot for the horse’s foot. We opened the tube up. I cut a round circle and put the horse’s foot standing on the tube. It was opened into a big wide strip and I put a line of holes, and put a rubber string on, made a draw string like a wee baby’s bonnet, you know. And I pulled it up tight round the horse’s fetlock. Then I padded it with some rubber inside. I yoked her up and we went on our way down Loch Long, in by the Cardross, into Helensburgh. And there’s a camping place beside the old cowp. We put up our camps and the next morning I checked my horse’s foot. And this rubber thing was still round it, never moved. I lifted and checked the boot, and the rubber wasn’t even worn through. John had told me, ‘I saw ma father daein this years ago in Aberdeenshire.’ It saves the horse’s foot. If this horse had gone with its bare foot for too long, its hoof would have worn down to the frog, into the quick. And then it would have went lame. We would have had to put it in some farmer’s field where its hoof would grow again, and I would have been left without a horse.

  So that night we stayed at Helensburgh and the next morning I said, ‘I’ll take the pony along to the blacksmith.’ I didn’t have much money, very little. We never had very much money then, just a few shillings from time to time, unless we were working or staying in the one bit. So I go along to the blacksmith’s shop and it was a nice old man in the smith.

  ‘That’s a nice beast ye’ve got there, laddie,’ he said.

  ‘Aye, it’s no bad.’

  ‘Where’d ye come fae?’

  ‘I cam up fae Argyll, over the Rest and Be Thankful,’ and I told the old man the story. ‘My pony cast its shoe right on the top o the Rest.’

  ‘But goodness gracious, laddie, how did ye get here? All that distance – I cannae put a shoe on its hoof if it’s worn doon wi walkin that distance. Is it no goin lame with ye?’

  I said, ‘No, it’s no goin lame wi me.’

  ‘I cannae believe this. I’ll hev tae see fir myself.’ And he came out to the door of the smiddie. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘that’s a nice animal!’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘What’s that ye’ve got on its foot, a poultice?’

  I said, ‘No, that’s a rubber boot, home-made boot. And that pony walked all the way frae the top o the Rest and Be Thankful. It never even put a mark on the rubber.’

  Well, he stood and he scratched his head. Well, I’ve been in horses all my days, and I’ve never seen that done before! Bring her inta the stable.’

  ‘Noo,’ I said, ‘afore ye start, I dinnae hae very much money. I cannae buy a new shoe. Ye’ll have tae put an auld shoe on fir me.’ (You know, cast shoes that he takes off somebody else’s horse, just like a traveller wearing a cast-off boot.) It was good enough, because the blacksmith made a good job of it. He heated it on the fire again and drilled new holes on it. But it was still a second-hand shoe.

  I brought her into the stable. He measured the horse’s foot with the ruler first, and then he measured her hoof. He picked through all the big heap of shoes till he got one about the right size and he took it, flung it in the fire. He blowed the fire up with the old bellows and he heated the shoe. He shaped it, punched new holes in it and put it on the horse’s foot, nailed it on. And he gave it a rub down with the rasp. Oh, it was nice, fine, you see! ‘Well,’ I said, ‘look, as I told ye, I dinnae hae much money.’

  ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘ye’ll have as much as I’m gaunna ask ye.’

  ‘Well, what’ll that be?’

  He said, ‘Two and sixpence, half a croon. And it’s worth it tae me.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, ye learned me a good trick!’

  ‘I hope ye’ll never need tae tie a rubber on a horse’s fit!’

  ‘Ye never know what I might need tae dae yet,’ he said, ‘afore I’m aff this worl.’ I never saw that old blacksmith again. A new shoe would have been about seven and six, a right good shoe about ten shillings. You got a good horse shod for about two pound.

  So we made our way further down and we came to a place on the shore outside of Helensburgh. There was a traveller woman and her son staying on the camping place. Jack was his name. And his mother wanted to buy him a horse. He was only about seventeen and I wouldn’t sell mine. So John sellt his tae him. the whole complete yoke for him and his mother. I think he sellt the whole yoke for seventeen pound, a lot of money then. She had one of these old-fashioned pockets that my granny used to wear around her waist, and she paid him out of this pocket. I remember her fine, God rest her soul now, old Maggie.

  And John says to me, ‘Ye’ll take my stuff ower tae Barrhead tae the neep thinnin place. Once we get inta a fairmer’s field fir tae thin his neeps, I’ll gae inta the
horse market in Glasgow. And here, you’ve never been in the Glasgow market!’

  I said, ‘No, I’ve never been in the Glasgow market.’

  ‘Ah well, this is better than Perth,’ he says. ‘Ye’ve been in Perth with me.’

  ‘Aye, I ken, I’ve been in Perth wi ye.’

  ‘But wait ti ye see the bonnie ponies that comes aff the Irish boat!’ Now the tinkers in Ireland used to go round and they took horses across on the boat the day before the market. Some of them sat out all night with them on the greens and parks to catch the sale the next day. It was every Wednesday, all day, horses in the market. And there dealers came from all over every place to buy and sell and swap. It was the same kind of market as Perth, but a bigger do, and it went on longer. And you believe me, there were some dealing o horses round about Glasgow at that time! There were men selling brickets, men selling coal, fish merchants, fruit merchants, tattie merchants, dairies, co-operative horses, you name it, everybody had a horse – fishmen, folk selling and dealing in second-hand furniture – all with horses, ponies of all description! And this was the day to look forward to, coming into the horse market, to see their friends, have a deal, have a swap, have a change of horses.

  So I shift my cousin’s camp on my cart to Barrhead, and we get a field of neeps, because we’d thinned neeps to this farmer before, Mr Young at Newton Mearns. So we thinned the whole field and got paid for them. It didn’t come to very much, two-three pound apiece. But my cousin and his mother had a terrible argument the next day. And instead of John going to the market, away he goes, clears out, off on his own. This was about the first time he’s left his mother in his life. And he goes to Aberdeen! Now whatever kind o money he got for his turnips and his horse, he took it with him in his pocket.