The Horsieman

by Ducan Williamson

  Travellers tied their horse close to their tent at night-time, and a horse then was as good as a dog to you. It was a guard because a horse has got the finest hearing in the world of any animal. A horse can hear things that nobody else can pick up. And this is the truth, you’d better believe it! So the travellers knew from experience the actions the horse went through and they could read these actions. If they heard the horse groan, ‘gnorroach’, this was the horse flinging itself down to go to sleep. Suppose it was a young horse or an old horse, it groaned when it laid itself down. And if a horse was lying peaceful, all was well. But if the horse got up in a sudden, and gave itself a shake, the horse was disturbed. Now the people in the tent heard this. Now they knew, it was like reading a book. A horse is not feart of small animals like squirrels or rats or wee rabbits passing by. A horse would never pay attention to it, anything like that they wouldn’t bother. It has to be something bigger or something evil that would disturb the horse.

  So, naturally when the traveller heard the horse getting up fast, he got up. He looked all around and he couldn’t see anything. But the horse, it was watching something. The horse pricks its ears forward and it focuses, just like radar, on this thing listening. And it could see! So, naturally the traveller had the belief that all he needed to do was walk up, put his arm around the horse’s neck and look between the horse’s ears. And if there were anything o evil around, he could see it – like looking through a magnifying glass. This was the belief and they believed it! It meant so much to them, sister, that some of them wouldn’t do it. Because they were afraid. Now just imagine a full-grown man afraid to look through the horse’s ears at night-time! Now I can tell you this, some people were afraid to look in case they saw what the horse was looking at.

  Now I can tell you about this, what happened to me. I left Strathmiglo and I travelled round by Kinross. I had a young pony, a three-year-old, oh, it was a high stepping hackney. So I’d left Cupar the day before, the wife and me and the three bairns, Edith, Jimmie and Willie. We were on our own and we landed out in the Crook o Devon, about four miles the other side of Kinross. We came to the Yetts o Muckhart, and instead of cutting over by Crieff we thought we’d make our way back by Dunfermline, back around through Bowhill and round there. I was collecting non-ferrous metals, but I wasn’t selling up every day, just collecting and saving them up for a while. The wife was hawking two-three baskets and flowers. So it was a gate camp I had. And the three bairns weren’t very old. So I had this beautiful pony, and he wasn’t very broken to the rope, for the tether, because you had to train a horse to keep his legs from getting fankled up. It’s very easy to get a horse choked with a rope. So it was late at night when we landed at the Crook of Devon. It was about the first of May. And Jeannie was expecting another baby. I wasn’t going to go to Argyll this summer, but I was passing my time round through Fife because she was expecting. We wanted to keep close into the district. The camping place at the Crook of Devon is not a layby, but just a piece of grass at the roadside, a square about a tenth of an acre. And there wasn’t much meat for the pony, but there was as much to keep him going. I put up the gate, came and we had our supper, got the kids to sleep. And I pulled the float up beside the door of the tent. I tied the pony to the wheel. We lighted the candle inside the tent and I read a couple of chapters of a story to her. She liked me to read a bit of a book for her.

  Then a car pulled in, an old-fashioned Morris shooting brake. And it wasn’t as far from here to the buildings there, about a hundred and fifty yards, and there was a gate going into a field. He pulled into the gate. And he was heaped up with carpets and all kinds of stuff in the back of this car. Like a commercial traveller. And he switched on the light inside his car and he’s working inside it. An old man, maybe in his forties, grey hair. Oh, the man never bothered us. But he must have been making a bed. He must have seen our tent and thought he was going to stay there for the night. Then he came out and he lighted a cigar. I could smell the smoke coming on the wind.

  So Jeannie said to me, ‘That’s a shan old gadgie34 ’at’s there.’

  But I was young, twenty-five years of age. I wasn’t worrying that any old gadgie could do anything to me in these days! I wouldn’t care, suppose there were three like him! So Bobby, this pony I had, he was about fourteen hands and built like a hare, you know. Very fast. And I really loved him. I said, ‘I’ll tie him close to the tent as possible.’ If anything happened to him, I would hear every sound. I was a very light sleeper at night-time. Even to this time, I am a very light sleeper. You had to be when you travelled in these places. Because you had to protect your wife and your family. And you never knew; you never know at any moment – I mean you couldn’t even take your trousers off at night when you were a traveller because you had to jump to attention at any moment. You couldn’t even undress yourself. You were never secure. A naked man getting out of a tent would never have a chance with any intruders.

  So the kids were asleep. I was lying at the front of the tent. I always lay at the front of the door. Then the wife lay next, and then the three kids right at the back. Bobby was tethered. I didn’t have a dog of any description. Travellers usually always kept a dog, because a dog would bark if it heard a footstep. But I tethered Bobby right at the door. And it must have been about twelve o’clock. I heard Bobby going down for the night. He ‘ruarrgh, ruach’, groaned. And I knew that he was down. I said, ‘He’s okay, as long as he goes doon.’ So I lighted a cigarette and I had a smoke. I always kept a wee part of the door open at the front for the smoke, for the sake of the kids, to let some fresh air in.

  But I must have been lying for about an hour. Just kind of dovering off to sleep when I heard Bobby getting up. And he ‘bowoopoochk’ – now this was a warning to me. So I threw the blanket off. I was just lying fully clothed, my shirt and my trousers on, in my bare feet and my belt even on. I got up, but when I got up I never moved. I just got up on my knees and I keeked through the split in the door. I saw the red cigar coming, the man from the car with the red cigar blazing in his mouth. And he’s coming, pit-pat, crawling on his hands and knees, crawling right to the tent!

  So I waited and waited and waited, and he came up close. But the horse was standing, you see. And then the horse whirled round, and turned its backside to the door, got its nose on him! Now the horse was direct at the front of the tent. And I think the man was afraid of the horse. I think that’s what put him off. He thought maybe I was asleep. So the man came up canny and then the horse started to blow, ‘bpwooo-oophp’, and its ears got up. Now I’m sitting here, keeking through the hole, the split in the doorway. And he came up as close as he could, till I could smell the cigar smoke. And then when the horse started to blow, he went away back again. Back to the car. And I heard the door of the car shutting.

  So Jeannie said, ‘What is it?’

  I said, ‘That old man in the car. He’s comin creepin up to the tent.’

  She said, ‘He must be a shan old man.’ The bairns were asleep.

  I said, ‘Dinnae worry yirsel. Dinnae let it bother ye!’ But there was nae rest for her then mair the night. She wouldnae have it no way. ‘I wonder what he wants,’ she said.

  I said, ‘I dinnae ken what he wants. But whatever he wants he’s no gaunna get it! But that’s no miss out for me the night.’ I just pulled the blankets over her and I lay on the top, stretched my feet out and lighted a cigarette. Lying back. Oh, sister, as fit as a fiddle! And the pony started to pick and graze, picking wee bits of grass round the door because he was up now. The time would be about two o’clock in the morning. And the pony was chewing and chewing the wee bits of grass, you know. Then I heard him stopping.

  And he started to, ‘whoochk, hoock, bwoo-oochk’. I opened the flap. here the man’s coming again! So he came as far to here as the door of the old house there, within twenty yards, on his hands and knees, crawling, the cigar going. So the horse started to carry on.

  I says, ‘This is it!’ I flung the door open, g
ang oot in my bare feet. And I walked up and I patted Bobby on the neck, said, ‘What’s wrong wi you, boy? What’s wrong? What’s bothering ye? Did something disturb ye?’ And he’s off like a shot, fweet! The man’s back and he shut the door of the car, banged it. But he never came near us, never spoke. And the light inside the car went out.

  I said, ‘What’s bothering you, boy? Is something disturbing you?’ And I petted the horse and then I went back to my bed. I lay a-top of the covers, and a wee while after that I heard Bobby going, ‘ahnnnnnng’, down again in front of the door. And I must have fell asleep. But when I wakened up it was daylight. I got up and kindled the fire. And the car was still lying there. So I wakened the others, made some tea, made some breakfast to the bairns, got the bairns ready. But we were just packing up when in come the police with a wee old Ford car. And two young policemen came in.

  One said, ‘How long you been here for?’

  I said, ‘Constable, we just cam last night.’ And this was a regular camping place. Everybody camped here.

  ‘Aye,’ he says, ‘it’s aa right. I’m no botherin you for campin,’ He took my name, wife’s name, the three kids.

  ‘Aye.’

  He said, ‘Where ye makin fir?’

  ‘Well, I just cam up fae Cupar and Milnathort and Kinross. I’m making my way back, right round through the Crook o Devon and back by Scotlandwells, and round back into Leslie, back into Coaltown o Balgonie. We’ve been here for years.’

  ‘Aye,’ he says, ‘it’s aa right. I’m no worried about that. What age is the kids?’ I tellt him. ‘No in school?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘well, they go to school. But they’re oot for the summertime.’

  He said, ‘Who’s your friend?’

  I said, ‘He’s nae friend o mine. I’ll tell ye something, constable, I didnae get much sleep last night wi, as you call, “my friend” here.’

  He said, ‘What happened?’

  Well, I told him, ‘Every time I went to bed I couldnae get peace for lyin. He came a-crawling on his hands and knees to the camp smoking cigars.

  He said, ‘Did he speak to ye?’

  ‘No, he never spoke to me. But he disturbed the horse. I don’t know what we would have done if we didna have the horse in front.’

  ‘Aye,’ he says. Do you know what the police said to me? This is the truth. He said, ‘Sometimes a horse is a good guard. Is it wicked?’

  I said, ‘No, it’s no wicked.’ And he went up and put his hand on the horse’s neck and he petted it. He said, ‘Hello, boy. How are ye?’

  I said, ‘I’m just moving out, constable.’

  He said, ‘That’s aa right, I’m no shiftin yese. We’ll go and have a talk tae him.’ And honest to God, sister, the two of them went away doon to this old man in the car. And they talked to him and he came out. He had plus-fours on and buckle shoes. He took out these papers and was handing them to him, letters. And the police were reading them. But we never waited to see what happened. Because I yoked Bobby in the cart, lifted the three kids onto the top of the cart and Jeannie and I walked away on our way to Dollar. But the old man never spoke . . . I wonder what he really wanted.

  You see, the horse wasn’t only a means of survival to the traveller. The horse was his friend, his watchdog, his means of livelihood. It was everything under the sun to us, as experience had taught me through the years. As I was telling you, when you were sitting round a campfire discussing these trades with the travellers, when they brought up a subject of any description, let it be the simplest subject of all, suppose it was only a horse disease or a horse seeing evil and all these things that were attached to the horse – if you couldn’t explain and speak about it to them, they thought you were lacking knowledge and then you weren’t classified as being a good horseman. You had to be able to talk on every subject from horse dealing to horse shoeing, horse disease, horses that wouldn’t work, horses that would work and all these things. Once you learned all that, then you were accepted as a horseman among the travellers. You were a ‘horsieman’.

  Now there were some travellers who were the finest travellers in the world and the finest company in the world, and the finest crackers and storytellers who never owned a horse in their life. And the thing was, when these kind o people came to your fireside and had a talk, you never indulged in the subject o horses in case you would embarrass them. It’s like the Gaelic-speaking folk not speaking Gaelic when non-speakers are about. Now I’ve camped with travellers who never owned a horse in their life, and when they came to sit by your fireside and crack, tell tales, you never started speaking horsie talk, knowing that the people didn’t have any interest in horses. You could never talk horse to my brother Sandy, no way in this world, even after years, after I got into the horse way and was married. He moved back to Argyll when his family was grown up, but he still never owned a horse. And I’d had maybe nineteen or twenty horses by that time, the mid-1960s. When I moved back to talk to him and camp beside him, I never even brought up the subject o horses.

  I’ve seen fifteen horses in the one camping place. Fifteen traveller men, when the women and kids went to bed, all sitting round the campfire. Now that night in Burntisland, as I was telling you about, when we sat so long, old Johnny Townsley had had a few horses in his time, but he didn’t have a horse then. There were seven men with horses there that night. And I’ll bet you there wasn’t one word mentioned of horses as we sat under that elderberry bush, just because he didn’t have one. They had respect for the old man, this was their way. But if he hadn’t been there, it would have been all horse talk all through the night.

  THE TRAMP’S DREAM

  In his bed in a bush by the wayside a tramp lay fast asleep.

  And as he lay deep in slumber with his coat over his head

  O sweet were his dreams of a can of tea and a loaf of lovely bread.

  And in his dreams he tossed and turned so weak he could scarcely stand.

  He saw himself in his dreams a very wealthy man.

  As he stood and gazed at his orchard where his fruit was turning red

  His thoughts would often wander to his lovely feather bed.

  And then he would look at his coal shed and his pile of pitch pine logs

  And of that sign he had nailed on the tree that said, ‘Beware of the Dogs!’

  And then as he looked from his window as the night was drawing late

  He saw the form of an old tramp man come walking to his gate.

  His beard was long, his coat was torn, his boots had once been black

  He carried a curled stick in his hand and a little bag on his back.

  And as he walked up those marble steps that led to the great front door

  Those beautiful steps of marble where no tramp had walked before.

  And then to the sound of snarling dogs and a cry of fear –

  ‘Get to the road,’ the rich man said, ‘there’s nothing for you here!’

  ‘Just a crust of bread,’ said the tramp, ‘or a bone you have kept for the dog,

  For I am cold and hungry and wet with the freezing fog.’

  ‘Get to the road and don’t come back! I need all I have for myself!

  Not a crust of bread you’ll get, not even a drink from my well.’

  Now that tramp in his dream was happy, now that tramp in his dream was bold

  For in his dream he did not feel the freezing bite of the cold.

  Then morning came to that tramp and he awoke with a start,

  And what he had done in his dream had chilled him to the heart.

  Now that tramp as he goes his way and meets other tramps like himself

  Whatever he’s got, he shares the lot, and to them his dream he does tell.

  Duncan Williamson

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE SECRET OF TRAVELLER TRADE

  People, even dealers, had a disrespect for travellers. When they swapped and dealed with a traveller they thought the traveller was going to ill-treat the horse, or it wou
ld be driven all day in its cart gathering rags, bags, bottles and bones. There was a stigma attached to the traveller – that when you gave a traveller a horse it was going to be treated poorly, unfed, run down to the earth – and when travellers were really finished with a horse they sent it to the boneyard. The wives of the non-traveller people were worse than the actual dealers.

  You take a wee pony belonging to a pigman or a coalman. It was standing in its stable in dung up to its knees and its feet got heated up with the dung. Its hooves got bad. And they probably fed it on wee bits of corn and wee bits of chaff mixed up with sawdust. This horse was in real trouble. And along comes a traveller and he wants to buy this horse. And the wife of the horse’s owner said, ‘Oh, we don’t want to give that horse to the travelling people.’ Not giving it to understand that when the travelling people got a horse, it went to a life of luxury.

  I myself, from my past experience, and the other horse dealers whom I know of among the travelling people have picked up horses from the non-traveller people who were just about their life’s end, their feet burned standing in their own manure; they had never seen a blade of grass, they were poor, had hidebone or maybe some disease that the non-traveller couldn’t cure. I, along with many of my dealer friends and horse traders, have bought horses from the non-traveller people that were really only fit for the knackery. And they were the people who condemned us, that we were the bad people to the horses, never knowing in their own mind that they were causing the suffering to the animals.

  Our attitude, if we saw a horse suffering in a stall, maybe it had founder or its teeth were so long it couldn’t eat anything; we would take this horse and do something for it. We would make his life last for another five or six years. When a traveller bought a pony of any description, all he wanted to do was show it off and bring out the best in it. Say, the traveller bought a pony from a piggery. The first thing he did when he brought back the pony that was a bit under the weather was inspect his feet. Then he would inspect his mouth. And the traveller would know by his coat if he was well fed. They would know what he was needing and would say, ‘Oh, this pony has been fed on hard food. All he needs is a touch of grass.’