A Rope--In Case Page 15

  ‘Tsen one of tsem says to me, “Hector”, he says, “are you sure you have no gun aboard yourself?” Ach well, tse man was sittin’ on it if he had but known but I couldn’t tell him tsat. Tsen I got a scare when I tsought maybe tsey’d heard me shoo tin’ at the rabbits while I was waitin’ for tsem in Rhuna. I was just tsinkin’ tsey was goin’ to start askin’ more questions when suddenly one of tsem jumps up. “My God!” says he. “Tsat ammo! I just remembered it was in my trouser pockets an’ I gave tsem to my wife to dry for me. She usually puts tsem in tse oven or in front of tse fire”. The other pollis just laughs. “Never mind”, he tells him, “you can always claim for a new pair if tsey’re too badly damaged!” ’

  Johnny arrived, whistling his way in from the shadowed sunlight. ‘Aye, aye,’ he greeted us and picking up Hector’s paper sat himself down in a corner to read it.

  ‘I see that school teacher that was here once stayin’ with Janet has got married,’ he said, looking up. They identified the man for me and dismissed him as being a Roman Catholic.

  ‘My God!’ said Johnny. ‘It would be a queer weddin’ if it was a Roman Catholic one.’

  I looked up in surprise. I found the Bruachites’ vehement prejudice against Roman Catholics a startling contrast to their usual tolerance.

  ‘Didn’t mean’ Angus go to a Papist weddin’ once,’ Johnny went on. ‘One of his crew married a Roman Catholic girl an’ we went away down to the weddin’. I never saw the like of it. The church didn’t look like a church an’ the fellow that was. takin’ the service, the priest they called him, he was laughin’ an’ jokin’ just the same as if he wasn’t religious at all.’

  ‘Oh my, my,’ murmured Morag and Behag.

  ‘Aye, it’s true,’ said Johnny. ‘He met us on the steps an’ asks us if we’re guests at the weddin’. When we told him we was he said to follow him. We did that an’ he took us into this place that looked more like a garage. It was cold as I don’t know what an’ he saw we was shiverin’ so he brought one of them electric fires for us an’ put it on one of the seats. Honest, we could smell the varnish burnin’ with it. Then he went up to the front of the church an’ he said, “Would you like a record on while we’re waitin’ for the bride?” He had a gramophone there an’ he put on “Mairi’s weddin’.” He was playin’ about doin’ somethin’ an’ suddenly he claps his hands an’ he says, “Oh God! I forgot the holy water”, an’ he’s away out of the church with his robes flyin’ behind him. While he’s away the bride turns up an’ findin’ nobody there to meet her she walks up the aisle an’ just stands there waitin’. The door of the church bangs open an’ the priest shouts, “Stand up, everybody, for the entry of the bride!” We all stand up but he saw she was there so he says, “All right, I see she’s here so you can all sit down again”.’

  ‘What a weddin’!’ disapproved Morag.

  ‘Aye, indeed,’ Johnny agreed.

  ‘Was the bride in white?’ asked Behag.

  ‘White or some colour,’ said Johnny. ‘An’ that was another thing. I told you this priest put the electric fire on one of the seats?’

  We nodded.

  ‘Aye, well suddenly he notices the bride is shiverin’. “Are you cold?” he asks her right in the middle of the ceremony. She nods. “Then I’ll get you the fire”, he says an looks around. “What did I do with that fire?” he asks. Well by this time the seat was nearly beginnin’ to burn, he only has to sniff to find it. “Ah, I remember now”, he says, an’ takes away the fire. He puts it so close to the bride she’s havin’ to move away from it while he’s readin’ the service for fear it sets fire to her dress.’

  ‘That was no right weddin’,’ said Erchy.

  ‘It was a good time we had after it all the same,’ Johnny told him. ‘By God! but the whisky flowed that night an’ the wee priest had his share too.’

  Morag shook her head. ‘A priest,’ she said, her voice full of condemnation.

  ‘Aye,’ said Johnny, ‘but d’you know the people thought the world of him, true as I’m here. You’d never get a minister from our church to have people sayin’ as nice things about him as they were sayin’ about their priest. Not an’ meanin’ them too,’ he added.

  Poacher’s Wedding

  It was less than a week to Angus’s wedding and as the days passed the Bruachites hastened to finish their haymaking or at least get it in weatherproof cocks so that they would not feel guilty at taking time off for the great day. Morag, Behag and Erchy had been helping me finish my winter stack and afterwards we sat in the cottage drinking tea. Hector, doubtless having prospected and seen that the work was over, ambled in and joined us. I showed them the wedding present I had bought. They admired it dutifully but even after years of familiarity with them I could not tell if they really approved.

  ‘I’m thinkin’ Sarah will be at the weddin’,’ said Erchy.

  ‘Sarah? What makes you think that?’

  Sarah rarely went outside the boundaries of the village.

  ‘I saw her comin’ away from the Post office an’ she had a proper list to starboard,’ Erchy told us. He was referring to the fact that Sarah collected her pension only when the post mistress complained she couldn’t sleep at night because there was too much money lying in the Post office (sometimes as much as five pounds). Then Sarah would leave her croft for half an hour to collect her dues. As she never recognized notes as money Sarah always insisted on being paid in silver and as her purse was a pocket inside the leg of her buttoned knickers her financial position could always be detected by the way she walked.

  Behag tittered. ‘You’d think she’d use a purse like other folks,’ she said.

  ‘Sarah will never trust anythin’ but the leg of her knickers to keep it safe,’ Morag told her.

  ‘Aye well, at her age I daresay it’s safe enough,’ said Erchy.

  ‘Too safe,’ I said. I had once chaperoned Sarah on a trip to the mainland dentist. It had been necessary to take a bus from the port and when we came to pay the fare to the strange driver he found he could not change my pound note. I managed to find enough silver to pay for myself but when he asked Sarah for her fare she handed him a shilling.

  ‘The fare is two shillings,’ he told her.

  Sarah was indignant. ‘It was only one shilling when I was last on this bus,’ she argued.

  ‘It’s been two shillings ever since I’ve been drivin’ it,’ the driver told her, ‘an’ that’s twelve years now.’

  Sarah flushed. ‘I’ll give it to you when you stop the bus,’ she promised.

  Now the trouble was that Sarah, when she did venture anywhere, used to work out exactly how much money she expected to need for her trip. Bus fare, ferry fare, so much for purchases, would be wrapped up separately in a twist of paper and kept in a tin at the bottom of her shopping bag. Money set side for emergencies was tucked securely up her knicker leg. Confronted now with the demand from the driver she was both embarrassed and indignant. When the bus stopped Sarah and I got out and went round to the back. the driver, obviously suspecting we might be using this as a ruse for not paying, came to keep an eye on us. Sarah started to root up her layers of long skirts and unbutton the leg of her breeches, all the while glowering at the driver until he turned his back. Eventually she managed to extract another shilling. She handed it to him and he studied it closely. There was a slight relaxing of his expression as he said, ‘1920. By God, you’ve had it up there long enough.’

  That was not the only time I had been involved in an episode with Sarah’s knickers. I met her one day when she was taking her cow to the bull. She seemed very distressed, frequently stopping to sit down on the side of the road and trying to straighten her bent back.

  ‘Are you all right, Sarah?’ I asked her.

  ‘Indeed I was all right this mornin’ but there’s somethin’ wrong with me now,’ she complained.

  ‘I’ll take the cow on for you if you’d like to go back home,’ I offered.

  ‘Well, if you’d just
keep an eye on her while I go an’ pee I’ll be grateful,’ she replied. ‘It’s maybe just that is the matter with me.’

  I walked behind an all too eager cow and in a few minutes Sarah was catching up with me with a greatly relieved expression. I looked at her questioningly.

  ‘Ach, here’s me thinkin’ maybe it was my stomach that was wrong, or maybe my heart, or my back, but when I went to pee I found it was only that I had my knickers on back to front. I changed them round an’ I’m feelin’ fine now.’

  Erchy said, ‘I reckon Angus an’ Mairi will do pretty well out of their weddin’. Folks seem to be set on givin’ them good presents to help with the do he’s plannin’.’ Mostly the Bruachites gave envelopes of money to the groom actually at the wedding.

  ‘Not Tearlaich won’t,’ interposed Hector with his meaning smile.

  ‘Why not Tearlaich?’ asked Morag.

  ‘Ach, he’s greetin about tse laird cheatin’ him.’

  ‘Right enough he’s lost out this time by it,’ Erchy affirmed with a chuckle.

  ‘Was he claimin’ for his corn again, then?’ Morag asked.

  ‘Aye.’

  Tearlaich owned one of the outlying crofts which adjoined the grazing. When the corn he had sown had grown to a tempting height it had been known for the deer to come down from the hills, leap the fence and plunder his crop. As the laird owned the deer he was responsible for any damage they did and being a generous laird he had always paid Tearlaich’s assessment of the damage without quibble. Tearlaich soon made it a habit to claim every year and every year the compensation was forthcoming.

  ‘He claimed again,’ Erchy said, ‘but he got word the laird was comin’ to inspect it this time. It’s never happened before an’ Tearlaich knew the man was suspicious. He had to run an’ get his cows an’ drive them through his corn before the laird turned up.’

  ‘And did he get away with it?’

  ‘He did not, then. One of the cows left a pat behind it an’ the laird saw it. He may be daft but he can tell the difference between cow dung an’ deer muck, so he turned on Tearlaich an’ threatened him.’

  ‘The man deserves it!’ said Morag.

  ‘The trouble is Tearlaich’s fairly ravin’ because when the deer get in another year he won’t dare to complain ever again,’ said Erchy.

  No-one had much sympathy for the perfidious Tearlaich who spent nine tenths of his time belittling the gentry and nine tenths of his income aping them.

  ‘So tsat’s one that will not have so much to spare for tse weddin’ present said Hector. ‘An’ here’s anosser.’ He indicated himself.

  ‘Oh be quiet!’ his wife told him. In Bruach the expression ‘Oh be quiet’ was used in the same way as English people say ‘you don’t say!’. Disconcerting as it may sound to a stranger it nevertheless invites further revelations.

  ‘Aye, I’m feelin’ tsat poor I wish I could rob a bank,’ Hector told her. Morag murmured condemnation.

  ‘Would you throw me out if I did?’ he taxed her.

  ‘Indeed I would.’

  Hector turned to his wife. ‘Behag wouldn’t, would you Behag?’ he asked. ‘You’d never give me away.’

  Behag smiled at him fondly. ‘It depends,’ she told him.

  ‘Depends on what?’

  ‘How you did it,’ she replied gently. ‘So long as you didn’t hurt anybody I’d hide you an’ lie for you, but once I heard you had laid a hand on a body then you would be on your own.’

  ‘Well nobody’s robbin’ any banks,’ said Morag, standing up. ‘An’ there’s hens needin’ to be fed an’ cows to be milked.’ As she had predicted she was now ‘skippin’ around like a young goat.’

  The morning of Angus’s wedding dawned with autumnal scarves of mist that were threaded with rainbows. Bruach was astir early and busy about its chores. The moors rang with the scolding voices of humans and dogs as stubborn cows were coaxed and coerced into haste. It was a good day for the wedding, Bruach allowed, because the weather was such that they felt no compulsion to resist the lure of the festivity in order to ensure the safety of the hay harvest I had by this time retrieved my long absent car, ‘Joanna’, from the clutches of the mainland garage where it had been undergoing a thorough, and thoroughly prolonged, overhaul and as I had promised to take Morag, Behag and Hector to the church I set off in good time, announcing my arrival at their cottage by a few toots on the horn. Morag emerged but then found it necessary to go inside again; she and Behag came out together and Behag had to go back. When at last they were both settled in the car we sat waiting for Hector who finally ‘sprackled’ from the house, looking very self-conscious in his best clothes.

  ‘Here’s you keepin’ Miss Peckwitt waitin’ again,’ Morag chided him.

  ‘Ach, it was no my fault. Did you tell her tse reason for it?’

  ‘I did not, then.’ Behag spoke quietly.

  ‘Aye, well you see, Miss Peckwitt, it was like tsis. Behag put out my shirt on tse line to take out tse creases an’ didn’t a bloody gull go an’ shit on it.’ Hector was outraged.

  ‘Ach, an’ you makin’ such a fuss of it.’ returned Morag contemptuously. ‘It was only on the tail of it that it shit an nobody was goin’ to see it there.’

  Most of the Bruachites had gone by specially hired bus and when we arrived the church was nearly full. The stately red-haired Mairi was stunning in her white dress and clouds of veiling and Angus, though he looked extremely tired, was a proud and determined groom. The minister hurried the service a little, I thought, and when it was over and it was time for the couple to leave the church he did not suggest that they wait until the vicious squall which greeted them had passed away.

  ‘Ach, he’s in a hurry for his dram,’ Johnny excused him when I commented on this.

  At the hotel we sat down to a lunch of fresh salmon and vegetables. The helpings were lavish.

  ‘Fresh salmon,’ I murmured appreciatively. ‘He’s not sparing any expense at this wedding, is he?’

  ‘Expense?’ Morag looked at me pityingly. ‘Indeed, where would there be expense when he hasn’t seen his bed for the last three nights with all the poachin’ he’s been doin.”

  ‘So that’s why he looked so tired,’ I exclaimed.

  ‘That’s the way of it,’ she said.

  I looked along the seated lines of guests who were tucking in with excellent appetites. There was only one figure who appeared not to be enjoying the repast quite so much as the others. Not surprisingly, perhaps, it was the gamekeeper.

  The waitresses filled our glasses with whisky and during the rest of the meal and throughout the toasts and speeches they were being continually refilled. The telegrams were read out.

  ‘Very disappointin’,’ Morag commented when they had come to an end and she had detected no lewdness.

  ‘Mairi told the best man not to read the good ones,’ Erchy explained. ‘We can read them ourselves when the minister’s out of the way.’

  Soon the singing began, appropriately enough with ‘Mairi’s Wedding’ and from then on it was just a splendid ceilidh with anyone standing up and ‘giving us a song’ and everyone joining in the chorus. Jokes were screamed across the room and followed by guffaws of laughter. The tables were cleared and we danced, the bride and bridegroom leading on to the floor. Mairi was very regal, but as the rest of the gathering became more boisterous someone managed to tread on her veil. She was on her way upstairs to take it off when a voice arrested her.

  ‘Now, Mairi my girl, watch out what you do with all that net. We’ll be needin’ it for the herrin’ on Monday.’

  When she came downstairs again Mairi was dressed for travelling. Angus joined her and the guests thronged around the couple with handshakes, kisses and farewells. ‘A grand weddin’,’ they told Angus. ‘I don’t know when I enjoyed myself so much.’ Only the gamekeeper stood on the edge of the crowd, aloof from all the compliments. At last it was time for the couple to go. Angus caught the gamekeeper’s eye.

  �
��Well, are you enjoyin’ yourself?’ he asked him.

  ‘I am fine,’ replied the gamekeeper levelly.

  ‘Good,’ said Angus. ‘An’ you enjoyed your dinner?’

  ‘I did,’ said the gamekeeper. ‘I fairly enjoyed it.’

  That’s good,’ Angus told him pertly. ‘For there’s that bloody much of it left over it looks as if the village is goin’ to be feastin’ on it for a week yet’ He winked and turned again to his bride, pulling her out through the storm of confetti to the car.

  ‘Well, well,’ Morag greeted me next day. ‘It’s back to porridge an’ old clothes for us after all the festivities.’

  ‘It was a good wedding,’ I said.

  ‘Aye, indeed. They said at the bar they sold more half bottles of whisky than half pints of beer. That’s always a sign folks is enjoyin’ themselves.’

  ‘I’d like to have a rough estimate of just how much was drunk I said. ‘Certainly the hotel keepers must have been pretty pleased with themselves.’

  ‘I’m thinkin’ they can be pretty pleased with Angus for all the trade he gave them,’ she said.

  From the shore came the sound of a klaxon horn. We turned and saw it was the fishing boat on which Angus normally worked.

  ‘I wonder why she’s coming in today?’ I murmured.

  ‘To pick up Angus,’ explained Morag.

  ‘Angus? But he’s away on his honeymoon.’

  ‘He is not,’ She nodded towards a familiar figure hurrying down to the shore with a bundle under his arm. Angus gave us a cheery wave.

  ‘But I saw him go off on his honeymoon with his bride last night,’ I insisted. ‘Mairi herself told me it was to be for a week.’

  ‘You saw him go but it was only to see Mairi off from the mainland station,’ Morag told me. ‘Angus couldn’t spare the time to go for a honeymoon just now, after havin’ time off for the poachin’ an’ all, so Mairi’s just had to go by herself.’