Lightly Poached Read online

  We sat down, Morag on a hard-backed chair near the open door so that she should not miss anything that was happening; Flora on a coir boat’s fender which I had found on the shore and now used as a pouffe, and I in my usual armchair.

  ‘Tell me, did you have yon mannie to see you?’ asked Morag, slewing round in her chair.

  ‘Was it a man?’ I countered with a chuckle. ‘I wasn’t sure what it was.’ I turned to Flora. ‘This figure,’ I explained, ‘just came to me out of the blue and asked, “Do you love the Lord?”

  Flora brayed with laughter. ‘Yon’s mad, yon,’ she declared.

  ‘It was sluicing with rain,’ I went on, ‘and the figure was in oilskins and sou-wester and it had a high-pitched voice …’

  ‘An’ long hair,’ interrupted Morag. ‘Though the Dear only knows why a man would want to grow his hair long unless he had a disease or somethin’.’

  ‘It was a “he”, then? Are you sure?’

  ‘Indeed, I couldn’t be sure what he was myself unless I turned him upside down,’ replied Morag. ‘But no, mo ghaoil, that wasn’t the one I was meanin’. There was another one came.’

  ‘Was there? No, I didn’t see him.’

  ‘They were sayin’ he was one of these Yanks.’

  ‘A Yank? Oh, no, I haven’t had any Americans calling on me,’ I told her. ‘Just the hermaphrodite.’

  ‘Oh, is that what he was?’ enquired Morag. ‘I wondered what religion he had to make him grow his hair as long as that.’ She threw a crumb of scone to a straying hen.

  ‘Well, if you didn’t have the Yank callin’ you missed somethin’, I’m tellin’ you.’ She wiped away a smile with the back of her hand. ‘He was wearin’ a kilt that near reached his ankles an’ short white stockings an’ a straw hat an’ them dark glasses so you couldn’t see if he had eyes or spider’s webs behind them.’

  Flora shrieked appreciation, and the laughter lines ploughed deep on Morag’s wrinkled face.

  ‘What did he want?’ I asked.

  ‘Am’t I tellin’ you?’ reproved Morag. ‘He comes to my house an’ when I go to the door he asks will I take him into the cow byre an’ show him my antics.’

  ‘Your what!’ I ejaculated.

  ‘My antics,’ she reiterated and seeing my expression added: ‘He offered to pay me, true as I’m here.’ She reached over to the table and put down her cup. ‘I told him, says I, “A few years ago if you’d come then to me I could have shown you plenty of antics but ach, not now. Those days have passed.”

  ‘What sort of antiques was he after?’ I enquired soberly.

  ‘Why, crusie lamps an’ steelyards an’ quern stones an’ goffering irons—even the worm we had for the whisky he was wantin’.’

  ‘I know what happened to the worm,’ I said. (Morag had once told me that after receiving warning of an impending visit by the Customs man all the village’s whisky-distilling apparatus had been dumped into the deepest well.) ‘But did you find anything else for him?’

  ‘I did not, then.’ She rose and helped herself to another cup of tea. ‘The quern stones I had right enough till Hector broke them up to use for his lobster creels, the wretch, an’ the crusie lamp disappeared when he was short of somethin’ to oil the engine of his boat.’

  ‘But the goffering iron,’ I reminded her. ‘Your mother’s goffering iron was still in the byre when I was with you. I remember your bringing it out to show me.’

  Morag gave a snort of disgust, ‘Indeed, mo ghaoil, but since Hector an’ Behag’s come to live with me what can I keep my hands on save my own breeks an’ it’s tight I have to hold on to them sometimes for fear Hector will snatch them for cleanin’ his engine,’ she complained bitterly. ‘No, but didn’t Behag take the gofferin’ iron first for liftin’ the crabs claws out of the fire when she’d toast them—as if she couldn’t do that with her fingers—an’ then the next I see is Hector’s got hold of it an’ usin’ it for stirrin’ the tar to put on his boat. The Dear knows where the iron is now,’ she went on. ‘I doubt it’s at the bottom of the sea along with the boat he tarred.’

  ‘What a pity,’ I murmured. ‘I remember your telling me how you used to love watching your mother sitting by the fire and crimping the lace on her bonnet with the hot iron.’

  Morag stared reflectively through the doorway, a gentle smile hovering around her lips. ‘Indeed, I remember it like yesterday,’ she said with a wistful sigh.

  Down on the shore Morag and Flora wrested brown dulse from the wet, limpet-stippled rocks until their bag was full when they came up to the tide’s edge and joined me in the collection of driftwood. No matter how adequate one’s store of driftwood might be it was impossible to resist taking home bundle after bundle rather than leave it for the tide to take away again. Morag looked up at the sky, assessing the degree of light.

  ‘If we don’t start back they’ll be thinkin’ the “Each Uisge” has got us,’ said Morag. ‘An’ there’ll be no milk for the tea if I don’t away to the cow. Hector’s awful heavy on the milk,’ she explained.

  We made our way towards the heather-fringed burn where a relatively easy path led up towards the crofts. By now it was time for the evening milking and we could hear, though we could not yet see, the milkers calling for their cattle over the echoing moors. From closer at hand came the bawling of frustrated calves which, recognising the calling and the clanging of milk pails as a portent of supper, would be cavorting within the limited circle of their tethers.

  Beside the burn Erchy was working at his dinghy, gouging handfuls of thick yellow grease from a tin he had found washed up on the shore and ramming it between the gaping planks. Like all Bruachites he had a sublime faith in grease and tar for keeping out the sea.

  ‘Are you gettin’ good fishin’?’ enquired Morag, surveying with unusual interest the floorboards of the dinghy which were speckled with fish scales.

  ‘Aye. There’s plenty of fish about now,’ he admitted. ‘The sea’s hissin’ with mackerel.’ With his elbow he gestured towards the outlying islands. ‘There’s a bit of herrin’ too. Tearlaich an’ me, we brought home a nice few herrin’ last night.’ He and Morag exchanged wary glances.

  Flora, still carrying her bundle of wood, leaned over the boat. ‘Yon’s no herrin’ scales, yon,’ she stated flatly. ‘No, nor mackerel either.’

  ‘Indeed they are so,’ argued Erchy but with dwindling defiance as he realised he was confronted by an expert. He glanced again at Morag but she had turned away, elaborately disinterested.

  ‘Yon’s salmon, yon!’ accused Flora.

  ‘Be quiet!’ returned Erchy with a challenging gleam in his eye but seeing Flora’s conspiratorial smile he went on: ‘What if they are salmon, anyway? It’s pleased enough you’d be if you found one waitin’ for you in the mornin’, I doubt.’

  ‘I would too,’ agreed Flora with unusual lucidity. ‘There’s nay harm in yon.’

  ‘The Lord puts the salmon in the rivers like he puts the berries on the trees,’ said Morag piously. ‘They’re there for all of us, no’ just the laird.’

  ‘Aye so,’ concurred Flora and she might just as well have said ‘Amen’.

  I did not need to express an opinion, having lived long enough in Bruach to accept that poaching was not just a means of obtaining trout or salmon for a tasty meal but a daring and exciting pastime. To outwit the watchers or evade the police was a game as compulsive as betting or gambling might be to a townsman, with the added attraction that it yielded a repertoire of adventure and escape stories for the participants to narrate at winter ceilidhs. Nearly every able-bodied male in the village, whatever his occupation, poached or had poached at some time or another. Even the salmon watchers were reputed to engage in a little poaching when they were not on duty.

  Sure of his audience’s wholehearted support Erchy became expansive. ‘Indeed I mind the old laird askin’ me to poach his salmon for him more than once,’ he told us.

  ‘Go on!’ taunted Flora.

  �
�Damty sure he did. I was doin’ watchin’ for him then an’ he was expectin’ this house party to come an’ wanted salmon for their dinner. He was up at the loch all day an’ didn’t get a bite so he comes to me an’ he says will I put my net in the river that night an’ make sure there’d be one or two nice fish for them.’

  ‘An’ you made sure,’ put in Morag with a reminiscent smile.

  ‘Aye, we got near a dozen so we picked out all the ones that had the marks of the net on them an’ sent them up to the laird’s house. The rest we kept for ourselves.’

  ‘That wasn’t right at all,’ Morag chided him.

  ‘Ach, the cook got a hold of then an’ had them prepared before the guests could put an eye to them but the next time the laird asks me to poach a few for him he says, “An’ mind you, Erchy, make sure there’s no net marks on them this time. I cannot rely on this cook to make such a good job of them.”

  ‘Is it true?’ demanded Flora.

  ‘As true as I’m here,’ averred Erchy.

  Flora shook her head. ‘Yon’s a mon, yon.’

  ‘These are no’ very fresh,’ Morag declared, leaning over the boat and scraping at the scales adhering to the wood. ‘Would these be the minister’s scales?’

  Flora and I exchanged amused glances. ‘The minister’s scales?’ we said simultaneously.

  ‘What I was meanin’ was were they the scales left from the night he had the minister out poachin’.’ She laughed ‘The night Erchy spent in the gaol.’

  ‘Never surely!’ breathed Flora.

  ‘Aye, we did,’ Erchy confirmed. ‘Him as well.’

  ‘The minister?’

  ‘Aye.’ Erchy nodded smugly. ‘An’ it served him damty well right too.’

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, you mind that Sassenach minister was over stayin’ for a holiday last week?’ I nodded.

  ‘Well him, it was. He mentioned more than once he’d like a nice salmon to take back with him so in the end I said I’d take him. We went to the river an’ we’d got a couple of good salmon in the net when suddenly there’s a shout an’ a couple of pollis come out of the dark an’ grab the net, salmon an’ all. They couldn’t see who we was an’ I got away out of it quick but this daft minister shouts, “No, Erchy, it’s no use. We’re caught red-handed.” God! I was that mad I could have hit him. If he’d had any sense he would have followed me an’ they’d never have been able to prove it was our net. We could always have said we’d just noticed it there an’ were havin’ a look.’

  ‘You’d have lost your net,’ I pointed out.

  ‘We could have got a new bit of net for the price of the fine,’ returned Erchy.

  ‘So they put you in gaol,’ I sympathised.

  ‘Aye, well, that fellow wouldn’t be satisfied. “We must plead guilty, Erchy,” he says to me. “No damty fear,” says I “They’ve no proof, I tell you.” “But, Erchy,” says he, “if there’s a case about it my name will be in the papers an’ what will my congregation think if they see their minister’s been caught poachin’?”

  The man was right,’ interrupted Morag. ‘He has to think of his congregation.’

  ‘Right for himself maybe but ministers should think about others as well,’ returned Erchy. ‘If he was goin’ to plead guilty then I had to as well.’

  ‘What difference does it make pleading guilty?’ I enquired innocently.

  ‘If you plead guilty you just spend the night in the cell an’ in the mornin’ you pay your fine an’ get out an’ nobody much the wiser,’ he explained.

  ‘So that’s what they did. An’ the minister didn’t get his salmon to take back with him,’ Morag said.

  ‘No, but he had the cheek of the devil, that fellow,’ Erchy disclosed. ‘When the copper came to the cell the next mornin’ he was mighty pleased with himself at havin’ got the pair of us an’ the two salmon as evidence. Oh, he was smilin’ an’ tellin’ us it was a nice day, an’ then he says, “What would you like for your breakfast, gentlemen?” as if it was a hotel we was stayin’ at.

  ‘ “I fancy some bacon an’ eggs,” says I, thinkin’ I’d be cheeky an’ put them to as much trouble as I could.’

  ‘ “An’ what about you, minister?” he says. An’ that minister looks at him as cool as I don’t know what an’ he says, “Oh, don’t go to any trouble for me, boys, just give me the same as you had yourselves—a plate of poached salmon”.

  Flora and I dissolved into laughter.

  ‘We’d best be on our way,’ said Morag. ‘Oidhche mhath!’ she called.

  Oidhche mhath!’ responded Erchy. I had taken a couple of steps in the wake of Morag and Flora when I realised that Erchy’s farewell had been spoken with his normal clarity and I realised suddenly that he was equipped with a full set of teeth.

  ‘Erchy!’ I exclaimed, instantly recognising them as his own because of the broken eye tooth. ‘You’ve got your teeth back again!’

  ‘Aye, I have so,’ he admitted.

  ‘You were lucky to find them, weren’t you? Didn’t you tell me you dropped them in the sea?’

  ‘I said I dropped them overboard,’ corrected Erchy, and seeing my puzzled look elucidated: ‘I dropped them overboard in the river the other night when I was poachin’ an’ I was certain I’d never see them again, but, aye, I was lucky. Somebody did find them. They got them in their net.’

  ‘How extraordinary!’ I said. ‘Who got them?’

  ‘I’m not sayin’ who,’ responded Erchy with an air of mystery, ‘but this mornin’ who should be at the door but the pollis an’ when I asked him what he wanted he pulled out this handkerchief an’ there was my teeths wrapped in it. “I hear you lost your teeths, Erchy,” says he. “Well, I did so,” says I. “I’m wonderin’ if these are yours?” asks the pollis. Well, I knew fine anybody would know they’re my teeths so I says, “Aye, they’re mine, right enough.” ’

  ‘But who would take them to the police?’ I asked. ‘Surely it would be tantamount to admitting they’d been poaching?’

  ‘Who would take them to the pollis?’ returned Erchy derisively. ‘When I’m damty sure everyone in the village knew they was mine?’

  ‘You mean …’ I began and then paused as the full import of his words dawned slowly upon me. ‘You mean the policeman himself was doing a spot of poaching and he caught them in his net?’

  Erchy fixed me with an uncompromising stare. ‘Now what damty fool would be askin’ the pollis a question like that?’ he demanded.

  Hic Jacet!

  Erchy’s mother and I met down by the burn where I had been looking for watercress and when I had first spotted her standing barefoot in the peaty brown pool below the waterfall I stood captivated by the picture she made. With sleeves rolled elbow high and skirts, tucked well above the knees she was carefully positioning two empty herring barrels beneath a craggy rock over which a truant rivulet of sparkling water poured gently enough to fill the barrels without risk of bursting them. Satisfied at last she waded about in the pool, selecting boulders to buttress the barrels until finally, after a push or two to assure herself of their rigidity, she waded back to the bank where she stood for a moment assessing her handiwork while she shook stray drops of water from her cotton bonnet. I marvelled at her toughness. Erchy’s mother was ‘Seventy past’; I knew from experience how bitingly cold the water in the pool felt to bare feet even in midsummer and guessed she had been enduring it for at least ten minutes. I continued watching while she sat on the heathery bank, drying her feet on her long skirts, pulling on a pair of thick black woollen stockings to just above the knee and finally lacing up her sturdy ‘tackety’ boots. Not until then did I make my presence known.

  ‘He Breeah!’

  ‘He Breeah!’ She struggled up. ‘Were you here long?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ I lied, fearing to embarrass her. ‘I’ve just been making my way along the burn.’ I showed her my few sprigs of watercress.

  ‘Ach, the biolaire, as we have it in the Gae
lic,’ she commented and with a smile added, ‘that’s food for the wee folk.’

  ‘I’ve heard that.’ I returned her smile.

  ‘Aye, there’s some folks hereabouts who’ll swear to seein’ a wee mannie gatherin’ it late at night but only the Dear knows whether or not they were tellin’ the truth.’

  ‘I’m very fond of it.’ I told her.

  ‘Aye, an’ so were some of the laird’s folk in my mother’s day, I mind her tellin’ me. But she had no likin’ for it herself an’ I daresay that’s why I’ve never taken to it.’ She tucked stray wisps of white hair into her bonnet and tied the strings under her chin. Waking or sleeping Erchy’s mother rarely left her head uncovered. Most of the year she wore knitted woollen helmets but on hot summer days it was always the old-fashioned but extremely becoming cotton bonnet.

  ‘Seein’ you’re here you’ll came an’ take a wee strupach with me,’ she informed me. ‘It’s an awful whiley since you were in my house.’

  Already I had been out longer than I had intended but to have refused her invitation would have disconcerted us both. She turned to take a last glance at the two barrels now full and overflowing.

  ‘How long will you leave them there?’ I asked.

  ‘Till Friday maybe,’ she replied.

  It was now Tuesday and I estimated that three full days under the waterfall would have cleaned the barrels better than any amount of scrubbing or scouring. To Bruachites whose homes were nearby the bum became merely an extension of their kitchens. There on the bank, supported by a couple of fire-blackened rocks and permanently in residence, Erchy’s mother kept a large iron washing pot in which she boiled her linen, rinsing it afterwards in the fast-flowing burn; it was in the bum she did her annual blanket washing prior to draping them over high clumps of heather to dry in the sun. There she cleaned the insides of the sheep they killed each autumn and there she washed the meal-coated bowls and basins when she had finished baking.