Lightly Poached Page 4

  ‘The trouble with the cailleach is she won’t allow anybody to be old so long as they can stand on their own two feets just,’ Erchy muttered with kindly understanding.

  ‘When I was a girl,’ said Erchy’s mother as she came back into the kitchen, ‘there was little ground oatmeal came into our house.’

  Erchy fished a half-smoked cigarette from his trouser pocket and lit it. ‘I mind my father bringing home meal that was already ground,’ he said.

  ‘Aye, but those were bad days indeed.’ His mother’s voice was unusually sharp.

  I looked enquiringly from mother to son, sensing a story. ‘How bad?’ I asked.

  ‘Ach, it was the laird that was here at the time. He was a bad man, Miss Peckwitt. A bad man indeed.’ She took the kettle over to the water pail and refilled it.

  ‘You’d best finish tellin’ her now you’ve started,’ Erchy encouraged her.

  ‘Since you remember it you can tell her yourself,’ his mother retorted.

  ‘Ach, I was young at the time. I only mind my father tellin me of it.’

  ‘He’d be tellin’ you the truth, then, so you can tell Miss Peckwitt the truth now.’

  Contentedly Erchy embarked on his narrative. ‘It was like my mother said. This laird that was here then was a hard man. A cruel man you could say an’ when he wanted work doin’ on the estate he’d drive round Bruach in his pony an’ trap an’ any man he’d put an eye on he’d point his whip at him an’ say, “I’ve seen you.” He never said a word more than “I’ve seen you” but once he’d pointed at the men then those men had to go the next day an’ do a day’s work for him. It didn’t matter how much work they needed to do on. their own crofts—they might have oats or hay to stack an’ the weather like to break at any moment, but they had to leave it an’ go at first light the next day to the laird’s place and work right through till it was dark. All they got in payment was a measure of meal. Just that. No money.’

  ‘But it was the measure that was wicked,’ interrupted his mother.

  ‘I was comin’ to that,’ he told her. ‘This measure he had was a bit like a small herrin’ barrel but it was divided into two across the middle.’ He got up and going across to the dresser picked up an old-fashioned wooden egg-cup. ‘The shape of it was a bit like this only bigger an’ with this sort of waist in it so that the top half held a lot more meal than the bottom half. When the work was finished for the day the laird would make the men stand in two lines, the big men in one line an’ the small ones in the other. They’d hold out their pocs an’ the big men would get the big measure of meal tipped into it an’ the small men would get the small measure.’

  ‘All for the same day’s work?’ I asked.

  ‘For the same day’s work,’ confirmed Erchy.

  ‘What if the big man was a bachelor and the small man had a family to keep?’ I pursued.

  ‘Then that was the way of it,’ was the reply. ‘That’s how they were paid no matter what family they had.’

  It all sounded so medieval that I looked askance at Erchy, recalling that his father had still been alive when I had first come to Bruach.

  ‘And all this happened in your father’s time?’ I could not keep the incredulity out of my voice.

  ‘Aye. An’ I mind it happenin’, though I was young enough at the time.’

  ‘Aye, he was young enough,’ affirmed his mother. ‘But if he didn’t remember it he’d have heard the men speakin’ of it for that they did often enough. They miscalled that man somethin’ terrible, Miss Peckwitt, an’ he deserved every bit of it.’

  ‘And did this continue until the new laird took over?’ I demanded, knowing that the crofters were eager enough now to be given work on the estate.

  ‘It did not then.’ Erchy’s denial held a note of triumph. ‘It was Big Ruari that put a stop to it.’

  ‘Big Ruari?’ I echoed. ‘You mean …?’

  ‘No, not the Big Ruari that’s alive today but his uncle,’ Erchy corrected. ‘He got the men together one day an’ told them if they’d all stick by him they need never again work for the laird except for money or fair shares.’

  ‘Big Ruari was my own father’s cousin,’ mused Hector.

  ‘He was my own husband’s cousin at that,’ claimed Erchy’s mother proudly.

  ‘Wasn’t he marrit to Anna Ruag that was an aunt of mine,’ asserted Morag.

  As everyone in Bruach appeared to be related in some degree or other to everyone else I saw there was a danger that the story of Big Ruari’s stratagem for overcoming the laird might be relinquished in favour of a prolonged delving into genealogies, so after a few minutes of simulated attention I put my question direct. ‘How did Big Ruari stop them working for the laird?’

  There was a hint of recoil and in the ensuing silence Erchy got up and made me wait while he searched in a drawer of the dresser for a crumpled packet of cigarettes. Outside two cockerels began to crow competitively.

  ‘Well,’ resumed Erchy, sitting down. ‘The men was all agreed that next time the laird was seen comin’ in his trap they’d make themselves scarce except for Big Ruari an’ he’d stay workin’ near the road so the laird couldn’t help seein’ him. Right enough, along comes the laird, points his whip at Big Ruari an’ says, “I’ve seen you.” Big Ruari touched his cap as he was supposed to but he didn’t turn up for work the next day, no, nor the next. Back comes the laird an’ by God he’s mad. There‘s Big Ruari again workin’ beside the road but the rest of the men is hidden in his byre. “Why did you not come to do your day’s work like you were told?” roars the laird. “See you come tomorrow, my man, or it’ll be the worse for you.” “I’m no’ coming to work for you tomorrow nor any other day,” Big Ruari tells him. “An’ what’s more there’s no man in this place will ever work for you again except for fair wages.” As soon as Big Ruari’s done speakin’ the laird ups with his whip an’ gives him a mighty strike across the face so that the blood comes pouring out.’

  ‘Oh, but he was a monster, that laird!’ interjected Erchy’s mother. ‘An’ him a Highlander!’

  ‘Aye, he was so,’ affirmed Erchy, gesturing his mother to remain silent. ‘Big Ruari then, he steps up to the trap. “In that case, master, I’ll do my day’s work now,” says he, an’ he lifts the laird clean out of the trap an’ throws him down on the ground. Then the rest of the men rushes out, unhitches the horse and send it harin’ away for home. They turn the trap right over on top of the laird so that it’s like he’s caught in a cage. An’ there they left him an’ went back to their own croft work.’

  ‘An’ no Bruach man ever did a day’s work for that laird again,’ said Morag dramatically.

  ‘I suppose he sold up and left eventually,’ I suggested, recalling mat the only lairds I had heard spoken of had been Lowlanders.

  ‘He did not, then. He died here in his own house,’ Erchy refuted. ‘Isn’t that his grave in the woods you were askin’ about yourself a good while back?’

  ‘Oh, that’s his grave, is it?’ I said thoughtfully, and was glad that at last I had discovered the story of the lone grave. I had come upon it suddenly while blackberrying in a gentle birchwood not far from the laird’s house. The surrounding iron railings had fallen outwards and were partially embedded in the moist earth but the area of the grave was still clearly marked by an abundant growth of nettles impressively green in contrast with the pale spongy moss elsewhere; the roots of a young tree had shattered what must once have been a large headstone. I had not lived long in Bruach when I had made my find and doubtless I had asked too many questions for a stranger so that when I had enquired about the lone grave I had been told merely that its occupant had been a Roman Catholic and therefore could not be buried in the Bruach burial ground. Instinctively I had suspected more of a story but I had had to wait several years to hear it fully.

  ‘Aye, that’s his grave,’ Tearlaich agreed. ‘And I’m telling you, Miss Peckwitt, that laird was so much hated, if any man from Bruach needed to have a pee a
nd he was within a mile of that wood he’d hold on to himself till he could get there just so he could have the pleasure of defiling that grave.’

  ‘Indeed I do it myself to this day,’ boasted Erchy.

  ‘Be quiet!’ his mother admonished him. ‘Miss Peckwitt won’t like to hear you.’

  I laughed heartily. ‘I wondered why those nettles look so well fertilised,’ I said.

  In Search of Apples

  It was well after the back of eight’ before the first potential passengers began to drift in twos and threes down to the shore but since diere was no sign of either Erchy or Hector I occupied myself with tidying up the tiny flower garden behind my cottage while keeping an eye open for signs of activity aboard the boat. My garden had perforce to be a tiny one since in Bruach adequate shelter had to be provided from the savage storms which constantly beset us irrespective of the time of year. The only satisfactory shelter was a dry-stone wall, the building of which is infinitely more complicated than it appears and though initially I had planned a garden large enough to grow shrubs and roses as well as annuals, as I had wrestled throughout the winter months with craggy jumbo-sized stones that perversely slid from their beds as soon as my back was turned so had my plans contracted until finally I was more than content with a plot that measured little more than three strides by two. I was able to rejoice that I had some shelter and when spring came I sowed the garden prodigally with seed that the catalogues described as being ‘the hardiest of hardy annuals’: marigolds, poppies, candytuft, Iavatera, and flax among them. I had tried to sow to a preconceived pattern of colour but when the seedlings appeared they did so in haphazard swirls acknowledging the eddies of a vagrant breeze that had been loitering, too stealthily for my wind-conditioned body to notice, around the garden at the time of sowing. The seedlings had flourished and now after a few days of calm and sunshine the full-grown plants were exploding into bloom, making a patch of colour on the drab croft like a brightly crocheted cushion in a barren room. I sometimes asked myself why I so much wanted a flower garden when, in their season, there was such an abundance of wild flowers to delight the eye. Celandines, primroses, red rattle, butterwort, St. John’s wort, corn marigold, orchis and countless other gems studded the crofts and moors with their discreet beauty until eclipsed by the autumnal glory of the heather, but comely as they were they were all either tiny or tough-stemmed plants and perversely I found myself missing the long-stemmed elegance of garden flowers. I stood regarding my plot, revelling in its colour and dwelling on even more ambitious plans. A rose bush here—my eye marked the spot. And another one there…

  ‘Them’s bloody lovely,’ said an unctuous voice in my ear and I turned to see Tearlaich who had come up quietly behind me and was regarding the flowers with eye-bulging admiration. ‘Bloody lovely!’ he confirmed with a congratulatory nod. Tearlaich was convinced that he possessed a rare eye for beauty. ‘I’d like to grow flowers myself,’ he confided. ‘Indeed I did try to grow some once or twice just to see what they’d look like.’

  ‘And were you successful?’ I asked.

  ‘Ach! It was always the same. Either the cows got at them or the sheep ate them or the horses broke down the fence and let the hens into them.’

  I sympathised with him. There was little enough encouragement for would-be gardeners, particularly flower gardeners, in Bruach, since even in summer with the moor gates closed against the cattle there were always straying animals eager to devastate any unfenced crops and traditionally once the hay and corn and potatoes were lifted and stacked the gates were thrown open again allowing the voracious cattle to rampage in and feast on the aftermath of grass. During their first few days on the crofts the air was filled with the noise of clashing horns, thumping bodies and bellows of aggression or agony as the half-wild cattle which had all summer been free to wander over the vast expanse of moorlands found themselves confined within the relatively small area of croftland and we, their owners, went about our daily chores with anxious eyes ranging over the cliffs and gullies near the shore and carrying hefty sticks ready to drive a beast away from danger or break up what might prove to be a disastrous encounter for one’s own or someone else’s cow. By the time the herds had amalgamated and were concentrating on feeding rather than fighting the crofts had been churned into morasses of mud by their hooves and only the most robust fences had withstood their blundering assaults.

  I was fortunate in that my cottage and byre were enclosed by a sturdy dry-stone wall, or dyke as it was always called in Bruach, which so long as I assiduously replaced any fallen stones was an effective barrier against the cows while the horses, which were not allowed on the crofts until the cows had gleaned most of the grass, were too busy seeking for food to have the energy for anything but dragging themselves from one promising-looking patch to another. My henhouse was far enough away to discourage the poultry from too close an investigation of the cottage and its immediate surroundings but it was the sheep which were my enemies. Against these I had little defence save sharp eyes, a supply of small stones and a stentorian repetition of ‘Halla!’ whenever they came in sight.

  ‘It’s a pity there aren’t more gardens in Bruach,’ I observed to Teariaich. ‘If more people grew vegetables or flowers they might be keener to keep the cattle away from the crofts at night.’ It was difficult enough maintaining a watch on one’s garden during daylight: it was virtually impossible to do so once darkness had fallen.

  ‘Ach, but there’s always the slugs to spoil a garden,’ responded Tearlaich nimbly. ‘It’s that damp on my croft the slugs are near as big as mice. I grew some cabbages last year and I could lie in my bed at night and listen to the slugs gnawing through them.’

  I laughed.

  ‘It’s as true as I’m here,’ he assured me with great earnestness. ‘Honest to God, those cabbages were as full of holes as a herring net by morning.

  From the shore came the rattle of oars being shipped.

  ‘Have Erchy and Hector gone down yet?’ I asked.

  ‘Aye, they’re away. They told me to call in and tell you to be ready and for me to pick up that rope fender Erchy dropped over your dyke a while back.’

  My croft being situated conveniently near was the repository for precious objects retrieved from the shore. There were times after a storm when my croft resembled a museum of flotsam.

  ‘I’ll go and get a coat,’ I said. ‘Don’t let them go without me.’

  Tearlaich still hung back, apparently unable to drag his attention away from the garden. ‘Those things, there,’ he pointed. ‘Are those trees?’

  ‘They’re supposed to be,’ I confessed with a rueful glance at the row of baby conifers which I had planted early in the spring in the hope they would thrive and eventually provide natural shelter.

  ‘They don’t look as if they’ll like to live,’ observed Tearlaich without optimism.

  ‘I doubt it very much myself,’ I agreed, assessing the miniature branches which still showed faint traces of green tips but otherwise looked as if they had been pressed and scorched with a hot iron.

  ‘Where did you get them?’ asked Tearlaich.

  ‘From that tinker. You know, the one they always call “Buggy Duck”. He promised me last year he’d bring some next time he was round and this spring he turned up with these.’

  ‘Were they like this when you got them?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I hope you didn’t give him money for them?’

  I admitted that I had paid Buggy Duck the price he had asked.

  ‘Ach, I could have got you a few from the laird’s place if I’d known you wanted them. He’d never miss that many.’

  ‘I don’t want illicit trees in my garden,’ I said firmly.

  Tearlaich looked at me and there were both pity and amazement in his expression. ‘Why then did you ask Buggy Duck to bring you some?’ he demanded. ‘Like as not they came from the laird’s place anyway but not so fresh as you’d have got them from me.’ He threw the conifers
a final disdainful glance as he turned away. ‘I doubt they’ll live the winter,’ he informed me. ‘They’ve been too dry.’

  ‘I told Buggy Duck when he brought them they looked too dry to survive but he got quite indignant. He said they couldn’t possibly have got too dry because he’d been sleeping with them inside his bedding for the last three months.’

  Tearlaich and I exchanged amused glances. ‘If a tinker’s been sleeping with them for three months I doubt you’ll have a lot of other things growing in your garden supposing you don’t get any trees,’ he comforted.

  Even standing on the shore I could see the boat was grossly overloaded and when we came alongside in the dinghy I estimated there was hardly more than eighteen inches of freeboard. There were coy screams from some of the young girls aboard as Tearlaich jumped heavily on the gunwale causing the boat to rock spectacularly.

  ‘She’s fairly ready to sink with the weight of folks in her,’ Erchy told him with a touch of irritation,

  ‘Ach, it’s calm enough,’ retorted Tearlaich and squeezing himself between two of the girls sat grinning cheerfully with an arm round each of them.

  It was a lustrous evening of velvet calm with remnants of the sunset still glowing behind the dark hill peaks and the unruffled sea reflecting the pale celadon of the sky save where the outlying islands cast sable shadows. Sea birds were everywhere, puffins, guillemots and razorbills, all bobbing and diving for late suppers while above them terns wheeled and dipped in flight.

  Erchy assessed the number of heads aboard. ‘Where’s Johnny Mor?’ he asked. ‘He swore he was comin’.’

  ‘I’ve seen no sign of him,’ said Tearlaich. ‘Ach, he was out on the hill today seein’ to his sheep. Maybe he’s fallen in a bog.’

  ‘Well, if he has we’re not waitin’ till he gets out of it,’ said Hector with a bland smile. He started the engine while Erchy attended to the mooring of the dinghy.

  Are we no’ takin’ the dinghy?’ asked Hector as the rope was cast off.