by Jess Smith
She felt much better and blamed the beating she received the previous night for her vulnerable feelings. Gathering up Maggie and her pack she set off on her way. ‘Come on, Maggie, no need to concern ourselves. It’s just a coach heading towards the hotel.’
At the spot where moor meets glen stands the King’s House Hotel. Many a weary traveller has spent a night within its walls; cattlemen heading their beasts to market, some from as far away as Sutherland, gave thanks on seeing its light through a heavy snowstorm. That was two hundred years ago, and still the same warmth is given today to the tired mountaineer seeking a meal and to quench his drouth with a few beers.
As Granny and the wee lass turned the next bend in the road, a cold fear ran up her spine! Straddling her path, in the middle of the road, were the men with the black horse and coach. Her foreboding, well founded, returned!
Heart beating like a jungle drum in her chest, she knew then that they were after her!
She quickly scanned the moor for signs of help, perhaps a shepherd or even a wary poacher, but no! Only herself and Maggie shared the bleak Rannoch Moor with the fearful strangers.
‘I’ll hurry past, it could be they’re waiting on somebody from the hotel.’ That thought had little sense to it; were they not a mile from the place?
Dropping the much-needed pack she lifted Maggie, wincing at the sharp pain running up her injured arm, and hurried by. As she did so the coach door opened, a hand stretched out to grab Maggie, and their nightmare began.
They didn’t want her! They wanted her little girl! Her precious child!
Ignoring the pained arm, she held her bairn tightly into her beating chest. ‘Let her go, tinker, it’s futile. Look round woman, there’s nobody for miles!’ roared the coachman, whip held ready to strike above poor Granny’s head!
The coach passenger, a middle-aged man dressed in black, shouted almost level with her face, ‘Give her to me, woman, we’ll take her with or without your assistance!’
Big hands grabbed out at wee Maggie as she screamed in bewilderment, tiny fingers clinging to her mother with all their strength.
My Granny’s arm felt like any minute it would be ripped apart! But there was no way she’d give up her child without a life-or-death struggle. ‘You’ll be murdering me first,’ she screamed at the evil man. ‘God grant a thousand curses on you for this!’
As the coachman cracked his leather whip above her head, she felt her grip on her wee lass weaken, and, for a horrifying second, it looked as if the strength of this attacker would win over her weakening grip.
Arm in agony, searing pain shooting through her body, she had to act quickly. If the wee lass were to be saved, then Granny had one last chance.
Standing close to the horse, so near she could see its eye whites and feel its hot breath against her face, she screamed at the man who would steal her child, ‘Here, take the bairn if you need her so bad!’
Shoving Maggie out to the man in the coach, she added, ‘Stop struggling with me, I give her to you. Do I not have a drunken bastard for a man, and two other bairns? What would one less mean to a poor woman like me?’
She knew to halt the horse the coachman would have to pull on the reins, and as he did so Granny retrieved her precious bundle and ran like the Banshee herself was after them, into the boggy ground of Rannoch Moor. She knew exactly where to go. For sure did she not have to shift herself onto the bog many times, escaping Grandad’s constant beatings?
The pursuers, knowing their horse was unable to take men and coach onto the soft peaty ground, gave up the awful struggle.
Watching my fleeing grandmother skilfully dart away, they called out that they knew where she was camped and would come in the dead of night, then galloped off down the way they came, disappearing through the pass of Glen Coe!
Granny carried Maggie on her back, the injured arm hanging at her side. Arriving home, they swiftly ate the supper of fish Winnie and Mattie had prepared. She then bundled up what they could each carry, warning her vulnerable family the evil men would come in the night, and made a long weary journey to the far side of Loch Tulla. It was here her cousin Andrew and his family were camped, seven miles over the moor!
Just as the rising sun threw slivers of golden light upon the cairn of Ben Achaladair, Granny and her small flock arrived exhausted at their destination.
Grandad, on waking from his drunken sleep, did what he always did, found his usual spot (while camped on Rannoch Moor) at the bar of the hotel. Cousin Andrew took Granny to see a kindly doctor who was lodging at the Bridge o’ Orchy hotel. He was in the area with a shooting party, and Andrew was beating for them.
‘Your right arm is broken, wife,’ he told her. ‘Why did you not get it seen to earlier? It’ll surely set crooked!’
‘Why indeed, sir!’ she answered, knowing, given her lot, this injury would not be the last! She never went back to camp on Rannoch Moor after that. Just in case a certain evil returned.
Granny and her drunkard of a husband reunited and had another seven children. Not one followed their father’s wayward path!
‘Come on Jeannie, best get moving before Runty thinks I’m not coming,’ said Daddy, slipping into his usual position behind the bus steering-wheel. Mammy got into her seat behind the wheel of Fordy, our far-travelled wee van.
As we made our way along the windy road, which, since Granny’s time, had now seen the covering of fine black tar, I shivered on thinking, ‘what if those fiends had got Maggie, or killed my dear Granny in the process?’
I glanced over my shoulder at fingers of ghostly mist creeping in across the glen. By the silence from within the bus, it passed my mind that we were all thinking the same thing: the traveller’s lot was indeed a fearful, dangerous one at times!
Three massive, heavy bags of brock wool, and many green, smelly fingers later, we headed for Blairgowrie, with another tale for you!
15
TINY
By the time we arrived at dear old Blair, every song worth singing had been given laldie, and for sure the whole lot of us were hoarse. Daddy cracked one of his droll sayings, ‘Git on yer horse and gallop over to the well for water’. Mammy laughed at his attempt at imitating the great John Wayne and said, ‘Tell him, lassies’.
In unison we all roared, ‘Git off yer horse an’ drink yer milk’. I haven’t a clue if the big yankee cowboy man said that or not, but the world claimed he did, so it stuck.
‘My, you’re easy pleased, you lot,’ said Daddy, manoeuvering the bus into its usual stance at the top end of Ponfads, the campsite on the outskirts of Rattray, on the Alyth road.
The following tale of that summer brought an addition to the family.
Tiny, a wee fox terrier, became our family pet. He was a family member when Mona left to start married life and was still around when Babsy, our youngest, did the same. I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but when he passed away he had reached the age of twenty-one years. Aye, honest! When my parents stopped travelling and eventually settled into a house, he went with them. It was a sad day when the wee white dog with a black patch on one eye and brown stumpy tail died. Let me tell you how we came to be blessed with our Tiny.
When coming into the campsite, I noticed, as we drove past, a bowed camp at the far end of the green. A grand fire was blazing away, and, round an old woman nearby played three of the reddest-haired bairns I’d ever seen. No way would their mother misplace those bairns with hair like that.
After putting the tripod basin outside the bus door I skipped off to play. ‘Don’t you lot go too far, it’ll be suppertime as soon as I get the stovies done,’ Mammy reminded us as we took off in different directions to explore.
The thought of a nice big plate of steaming hot tatties, onions and corned beef made me call back, ‘The hunger’s on me, so don’t worry, I’ll be playing round the door.’
I was curious, though, and leaving my sisters playing in safe sight, I went to have a look at the bowed camp with the red-headed bairns.
This was the type of abode my folks lived in as youngsters, and it always held a fascination for me. The construction itself was an art handed down from father to son. With Scottish winters being so severe there was no room for error. If rain and draughts were allowed under those canvas structures then new-born babies and elderly parents would certainly suffer.
They were built like a skin around a ribcage. Animal skins were used originally, and later replaced by jute sacks, plastic sheeting or tarpaulin. Hazel sticks, which were formed into bows while the saplings were still young, became the skeleton for these nomadic homes. When the time came to move on, it was a simple matter of removing the cover and untying the sticks, which were all held together with a ridge pole, and piling them neatly onto the cart. Usually a small horse pulled the cart around the countryside. However, if there was no horse, the entire contents of the travellers’ life were distributed onto their own sturdy backs. To add to the comfort of their tents, water was drained away by digging a shallow ditch at either side, allowing drainage water to run freely away from the floor. In winter heavy stones were used to stop strong winds blowing the cover off and away. Ropes were also used as extra security. Where two canvases joined, usually in the middle, a wee stove was secured to give heating and cooking. This was a lifesaver in the cold winters Scotland was at one time accustomed to. A long lum (chimney) was pushed through the roof to take away the smoke. Relatives told me of the ghost stories they heard as children during winter nights while huddled inside, with gales and blizzards swirling round their cosy homes of long ago.
‘Hello,’ I called (getting back to the tale in hand) over to the children sitting beside the old woman. They were shy wee things, and as I got nearer they couried their faces into the elderly woman’s bosom.
‘Hello to you’, said a voice from inside the camp. At that a younger woman pushed her head out, and, deary me, she was another redhead!
‘The weans are feart at strangers,’ she told me.
‘Och, I’m not going to hurt you,’ I assured them.
‘Where are you from, lassie?’ asked the old woman, before adding, ‘Was that you coming in on thon bus I saw a while back?’
‘Yes, we travel all over in him, a grand home is the bus, and I’m a Riley from Aberfeldy.’
She took a stick from a neat pile at the side of the camp and tossed it on the fire. ‘Never heard of you,’ she said, turning her head towards the blaze, then added, ‘B us is it? We always relied on wee Bonny. She was a grand palomino horse, but she died a week back. We have nothing now. To pull the cart, that is.’
I looked around. The horse must have brought them here, because horse tack lay across a tree adjacent to the camp. I asked who took the carcase away. She pulled her shawl over her head and went silent. I was thinking it strange that a man was absent from the group, and being a youngster I asked where the head of the family was?
‘We’re from Argyllshire. This is the first time we came to the Berries,’ said the younger woman, brushing her long red hair as she stooped coming out of the camp. ‘This is my Mam, Bella, and these wee bissoms are my chiels. Clara is the oldest, she’s six, Rhorie here is a big four, aren’t you my laddie, and Florrie, my baby, is three. The berry farmer kindly took our old Bonny away for us. She was over thirty, so, poor beast, was glad to go, I think. Mam loved her horse, though, and hates the thought of her not being here.’ Then she freely told me that Ronald, her man, took with ill health and was no longer among us. A tear slid down her cheek. I felt guilty at my nosiness and instantly apologised, then quickly changed the subject.
‘Oh, I love animals too, but we’re not allowed any in case they ran under the bus and got squashed.’ I turned to speak to the little ones. ‘I bet you can’t guess this, but I have seven sisters!’ Ice broken, the bairns took to me straight away. I was fascinated by their hair colour. I wanted to take the little ones up to our pitch and show them to the folks and my sisters. ‘Can I take them up to meet my wee sisters?’ I asked.
‘Na, na, lass,’ said old Bella, ‘it’s nearing their bed-time. The morra’s morning you’re welcome back.’ That said, she rose from the fireside and crawled into the tent.
‘Aye, see you in the morning, pet,’ said the children’s mother, who told me her name was Isa. They waved me goodbye, as one by one they followed their granny into the camp for the night.
‘Oh, Jessie,’ called Bella, ‘before you go would you like a peek at my wee dog’s pups?’
Given my love of animals, nobody had to ask me that twice. The old woman gently held back the door to display a tender sight. Lying curled up beside their mother were four of the smallest pups I had ever seen.
‘My, what wee they are,’ was all I could say.
‘The old dog is nearing her end,’ whispered Isa. ‘You know she’s had a wayn of litters in her life, but I fear this last one will kill her.’
The poor old dog did look fairly peched, and didn’t bat an eyelid when I lifted up the nearest pup, a black and white ball of fluff. But this one didn’t catch my attention. No, it was the smallest one. Snugly sucking away at its mother’s milk, no bigger than my fist, a wee white cratur with a black patch covering the right eye, who looked at me.
All I could say was, ‘My, you’re tiny!’ I gently laid the other wee mite beside his mother and looked round the camp. I told old Bella my folks lived their early years in the bowed camp. I was surprised to see how well constructed it was. Being that there was no man, these two women certainly knew their stuff.
Sitting round the blazing fire, tucking into my stovie supper, I told Mammy all about my new-found friends, and the pups of course.
‘Don’t you be bothering folk now, Jess. I saw thon old woman and she didn’t look in the best of health—give her peace, and don’t be running in and out the camp.’
As I washed for bed I promised my mother to do as she said. That night I filled my dreams with the bonnie tottie dog that slept beneath the canvas of the old bow camp, and further dreamt that he was mine.
For the next week the strawberry-picking was in full swing, and wherever I went the three red-headed weans came with me. The pups grew strong and I became more and more attached to Tiny. But when I mentioned him to Mammy she said ‘No!’
‘Keeping a dog in a house is fine enough, but it would be cruel in a bus,’ she said, then added, ‘I’d be forever tramping on the animal.’
Saturday morning after breakfast, I skipped off to take my new-found pals out for a play. Strange it was, when I arrived, to see the fire not lit. And why was the old woman not up and about? I stood at the closed camp doorway and quietly called to Isa.
‘Wait there the now, Jess, I’ll be out in a minute.’ After a while she appeared and I noticed she’d been crying.
‘Is there something up with one of the bairns?’ I asked, concerned. She didn’t answer, because a moan from within the camp had her dashing back inside. My concern had me intruding, as I gently leant down and pulled back the door. ‘Can I help, what’s wrong?’ I asked again.
‘Mam isn’t the best this morning, lass. Do you think you could away and fetch your mother for me?’ Isa looked frightened. I had seen that look before whenever folks were really poorly.
As fast as my legs could carry me, I ran home. Mammy was busy washing and was up to her elbows in soap-suds. ‘Old Bella’s not well this morning,’ I told her, ‘her lassie Isa needs help.’ I was out of breath. Mammy could see something was wrong. She quietly stopped her chores, dried her hands and took off her wet apron.
‘Now Jess,’ she said softly, ‘you dress the weans and light a fire, fill Isa’s kettle and put it over the heat to boil.’
Without question I obeyed my mother. I then took the bewildered wee ones up to the bus, where I gave them each a plate of porridge. After I had wiped little Florrie’s face we all went back to see how Bella was progressing.
‘Come in, one at a time,’ said my Mother.
I was puzzled, what was wrong? I had enough sense, though, to
see this was big folks’ ways of doing. So, without question, I ushered each wean in, then out, before asking if I could come in. Mammy took my hand, pulling me onto my knees as I went in. The old woman’s colour was drained white. Isa was sobbing into a flannel cloth, at the same time holding her mother’s hand to her face.
Bella turned slowly to look at me. With a faint gesture she pointed to her feet where the old dog and her sleeping pups lay. ‘Take the yin with the black patch, bonny lass, it’s yours,’ she said in a whisper.
I looked at my mother and she nodded. I was confused. She was adamant about no dogs, yet here she was, giving approval for the very thing I had been denied.
She ushered me out, saying in a whisper: ‘Take the wee ones away to play. At dinner time take them up and feed them at the bus with soup from the big pot.’ Before I could question her as to why it was necessary to keep them away she added, ‘Here’s a bob, buy sweeties.’
All I could think was, this poor old woman is awfy sickly if I’m getting all this money for sweets. Little did I, or the weans, know just how sick Bella really was.
We played ‘hide-and-seek’ in the high berry drills, stopping every now and then to pop a juicy berry in our mouths, laughing at the way the red juice ran down our cheeks. Soon we forgot about the drama back in the bow camp as, like bairns the world over, we played.
Soon though, they tired of eating berries and playing in the high drills. So with the shilling Mammy gave me I knew the very thing that would bring smiles, a braw big tin of condensed milk. Off to the bothy shop with my shilling and my wee flock following behind, to devour the contents of heaven itself. But as we sat in a circle on a patch of clover it dawned on me we needed a tin-opener. I told my flock of hungry bairns we’d have to go back to the bus and get one.
‘Not necessary,’ said Clara, ‘I have the very thing.’ Pushing her thin fingers inside a concealed pocket in her shorts, she pulled out a rusty nail. Without a word she ran her hand across the ground and picked up a medium-sized stone
