Later that day, we found Sarah’s entire life in that old cardboard box.
She was the illegitimate child of Sarah Mackinnon – father unknown. As this was a terrible slight on the mother’s character, it was surprising that Sarah (senior) got a post as lady’s maid to a Lady Leticia Briggs in the Outer Isles. I recalled Sarah telling me about this when I had seen all the beautiful but rotting dresses that her mother had left in her care. I belatedly remembered my promise to put her into one of these when she died. It was not too late: I could drape the remains of the best of them over the clean night gown that I had dressed her in.
Sarah (our Sarah) was allowed to live with her mother at the house. (We were all of the opinion that some male member of the household was probably responsible for the child. We could see no way that she would have been tolerated otherwise.) She grew to be a lovely young woman – there was a faded photo of her – and stayed on as parlour maid. History repeated itself and the son of the house fathered a child with Sarah. She was not allowed to keep the child and for many, many years she had no knowledge of his whereabouts. But he had been lucky enough to be adopted by wealthy people (again we wondered if these ‘people’ were some friend or relative of the Briggs family).
It appeared that Donald-Archie ‘found’ Sarah when she was about fifty years old. Having inherited her uncle’s croft, she was living on Papavray as a simple crofter. Donald-Archie was already wealthy and, although he did not seem to have come to see her, he arranged for money to be sent to the Laird – Duncan’s father at first – then Duncan himself. It seemed that, far from collecting her rent for the croft, Duncan’s once-monthly visits were designed to give her the cash. Unknown to Sarah, her son had predeceased her by some twenty years, but had arranged for his solicitors to continue the payments from his estate. We realised that Duncan must know all this but he was away at the moment so he was not aware of Sarah’s demise.
It was obvious from her lifestyle that she did not use the money. So where was it? There was no will. Crofters usually had so little that making a will was considered the height of sophistication.
‘I’m thinking that she would have it stashed here somewhere. I don’t think she would have trusted banks. The trunks?’ said John.
‘No. I had trouble opening the one with all the dresses: it had not been opened for years.’
The three of us scrabbled about, looking in boxes, old leather cases, under her bed – nothing.
Then I thought of what Mairie had told me. Sarah had insisted on dying in bed. She often slept on her old sofa, saying that it was more comfortable than her knobbly old bed. But she wanted to die in bed.
‘The bed!’ I began to strip off pillows, blankets, the old feather mattress and finally, the horsehair under-mattress.
There, still wrapped, were wads of notes! There must have been thousands and thousands of pounds. Old, white five pound notes were in the earlier bundles, while modern fifties were in others.
‘Well.’ Doctor stood back, dusting his knees.
‘I have never seen so much money.’ John gazed, mesmerised, at the bundles spread over the entire length and width of the planks forming the bed.
‘What are we to do with it all?’ I wondered.
‘I’ll have to get Fort William in on this,’ declared John, alluding to the central police station for the area. ‘We will have to count it all and keep it somewhere more secure than this.’
‘We will talk to Duncan when he returns and see what he might know about her wishes,’ said Doctor Mac.
I looked at him. ‘I don’t think she will have given it a thought beyond putting it away “safely”.’
I thought of her meagre meals, the chickens, the cow, the damp croft house, the lack of decent clothes, the peat-cutting and so on. And yet she could have had a comfortable life. But to have such a life on Papavray would have set her apart from her friends and Papavray was undoubtedly where she had always wanted to be. She was wiser than many of those who win vast quantities of money and think that they can change their lives and themselves and yet somehow remain the same.
* * *
Sarah’s post-mortem showed that she had died of natural causes. None of us ever understood how she could have known when she was going to die. Was this an ability that comes to some who live in simple surroundings ‘close to the soil’? Wild animals sometimes know when they are about to die and some, like the elephant, travel miles to a particular place to do so. So why not humans?
The money was spent in accordance with Donald-Archie’s will ‘To benefit the island of Papavray in whatever manner seemed fit to the Laird.’
Duncan had an old people’s home built on Papavray because those needing care in their later life had always had to leave the island. The move away from their roots had killed not a few.
Now they would be able to end their days on the island they loved.
19
Island Animals
I AM CONTINUOUSLY amazed at the glory of the mountains and sea and the ever changing light of the Hebrides, the warmth and personality of the people and the huge variety of events that fill our lives here on the edge of the British Isles. But equally interesting are the animals without which the way of life on the islands would not survive.
Almost every aspect of life in the Hebrides is dictated by, or concerned with, animals: in fact, their needs rule the everyday lives of the crofters as no clock ever could. Husbands and wives take separate holidays so that there is always someone at home to milk the cow and feed the chickens. No-one gets married during the lambing season as everyone including the bride and groom would be far too busy. Wives hurry home from the bus after shopping in order to feed the hens rather than because they have any intention of producing their husband’s meal on time.
Sheep shearing involves the entire family. The dogs gather and pen the sheep and the men shear the woolly beasts while the women struggle up to the sheep fanks on the hillsides with baskets of food and tea for everyone. Even the old folk are expected to help roll up the fleeces back in the byres.
Dogs – usually collies – are indispensable to the crofters who are often canny enough to be able to view a two-week-old pup and tell if it will make a good sheep or cattle herder. Cats, too, have an important role to play as without them the busily munching mice would sadly deplete the bins of grain and rats would eat the hens’ eggs while they were still warm. Woe betide Rabbie Burns’ ‘wee timorous beastie’ when the island cats were on the prowl!
We had been on Papavray for about a year when our old retriever came to the end of her long life. To minimise the sense of loss for the boys, we immediately chose our two collie puppies, ‘Pip and Squeak’. They were completely untrained, but having been born of working parents, they had ingrained herding instincts. On one occasion, I very much wished that they hadn’t. We were visiting friends in England when the dogs ran off, rounded up a herd of peaceful cows and brought them triumphantly into the suburban garden. Our host’s lawn was never the same again.
There is a custom in all the Hebridean islands which is often a disturbing surprise to visitors and to incomers like us.
One afternoon during our first summer on Papavray, the boys and I were walking along a pebbly beach when I was startled by Nick’s shout.
‘Look, Mum! It’s a bull.’
‘Oh? Surely not.’
‘It is Mum. I can see his… um.’
He was right. I, too, could now see his ‘um’, but I still found it hard to believe. We were still new to island ways and a bull on the loose was not something that we were used to seeing.
The beast, which turned out to be a Hereford, was massive: short of leg, large of head and with murderous-looking horns. He was strolling across the beach, attended by a slight figure in cap and wellies. Languidly flicking a thin twig – no, not a stout stick as one would have expected, but a fragile twig – the man shambled past us and, with a brief nod, followed the bull through a gate and out of sight.
On our
way home, I sought Archie, to whom I already turned for information on all things local or crofting. Usually so pleased to air his knowledge, he was oddly reticent; even going so far as to say that he didn’t want to discuss it. Puzzled, I reminded him that I was a nurse, wife and mother and had therefore been aware of the ‘birds and the bees’ for some time. Eventually, I was told that the bulls were owned by the Crofters’ Commission and rented out to the various islands in the summer months, each township getting its own bull. The crofters paid so much per annum per head of cattle owned (usually just a house cow) and the bulls roamed freely with the cows. Although crofting life is lived ‘close to the soil’, strangely, the mating of these animals is termed ‘getting married’! This is just one of the contradictions of life in the far north.
So the cow would have a calf every year and the problem of fresh milk and butter was solved. The calf would be sold or possibly slaughtered at about two years old and salted down, or more recently (since the ‘electric’), frozen. So the mystery was solved. Our passive, old Hereford was not unusual in his affability on the beach that day, for as long as a bull has the freedom to roam and his cows to ‘court’, he takes little notice of humans and we became used to encountering these magnificent creatures in our everyday lives. All the same, when walking in the hills, we favoured a stout stick rather than the twig in which the crofters put their trust.
There was one morning when a stubborn bull almost caused the boys to miss the school bus to the ferry for the mainland. I was driving the three children of senior school age from Dhubaig over to the bus which left from Cill Donnan. We were high on the side of Ben Criel when, rounding a bend, I almost ran into a large black bull standing determinedly in the middle of the single track road, munching contentedly. This bull was known to be of uncertain temper if approached, so I blew the horn and we beat the sides of the car with our hands to try to move him. He took not the slightest notice, continuing to gaze into the distance and munch. But I noticed that his tail twitched and one front foot rose in the air. He was not happy! We continued to make as much noise as possible but nothing moved him.
‘We are going to miss the bus, foreby,’ said a worried Donald.
‘Nurse!’ Chris suddenly spoke. ‘I have my bagpipes here for the school concert. Do you think if I played them out of the window, he might move?’
‘Yes, Chris. Anything.’
Chris took the pipes from their case, warmed them up and started to play.
I have never seen a bull move so quickly! He was off the road and over the hill in a twinkling. They caught the bus.
These Commission bulls were removed from the islands in the autumn (hopefully having done their duty by the cows) and housed in the warmth of their winter quarters in Inverness. One year, I happened to travel on the mainland ferry transporting about twenty of these creatures from several islands. The sea was rough that day and the bellows and attempted stampedes showed just how little they enjoyed this trip. It all looked horribly dangerous, but I had lived on Papavray long enough by then to have complete confidence in the shouting, sweating men who were slipping and sliding about on the deck in the ample evidence of the bulls’ distress.
There were still one or two working horses on the island but ancient tractors had replaced most as the crofters found it easier and cheaper to maintain these than buy winter feed, supply stabling and pay the farrier (usually just the blacksmith) and the vet.
Apart from the farm and working animals, many wild creatures were in daily evidence. Deer, foxes, rabbits, shrews, voles and many other small rodents were common while otters and all manner of sea birds enriched our lives. Deer, however, were often a problem, as they would descend to the villages in the winter to find food and many a row of winter cabbages has disappeared overnight, no matter how high one’s fences.
Every spring sees the joy and wonder of lambing time when the hills are alive with the thin cries of the newborn and the worried bleats of harassed ewes. Lambs in the Hebrides are rarely seen to leap and gambol like their southern cousins born in lush meadows and warmer climes. The ewes here have a hard time finding sufficient food on the sparse winter pasture, so their milk is less nourishing and the lambs have little energy for frolicking. There was only one spring when I saw a ‘school’ of lambs playing together in the sunshine in a little dell while their mothers grazed contentedly nearby. It had been an unusually mild winter.
There are always the tragedies. Every year, some ewes, weakened by the winter privations and the burden of lambing will die, often leaving a motherless lamb. Many of the croft house kitchens are very busy at this time of the year and rows of baby’s feeding bottles can be seen on the shelves although all the inhabitants may be over seventy years old. Cardboard boxes nestle by the stoves, each containing a white, fluffy and very vocal orphan.
We adopted a lamb ourselves during our first spring on Papavray. We called him ‘Louis’ and the little bundle of soft curls immediately enslaved the entire family, with everyone competing for the privilege of bottle feeding him. But little lambs have a habit of growing into big sheep and Louis was no exception. The soft fluffy curls became a stiff, wiry coat, the dainty hooves turned into sharp instruments of torture while the once pretty head began to grow knobbly horns. The only one to ignore this change was Louis himself. Having been raised indoors, he saw no reason to relinquish this privilege and jumped onto chairs, walked across the coffee table and tried to steal the family’s food. When we could stand this no longer, we banished him to the outside world where he promptly launched a campaign of destruction on the back door. It bore the evidence for years.
At this time, we still had our old retriever, who had led a pampered life before coming to Papavray. Now here was this upstart challenging her superiority. Our ‘small acre’ (to quote Mary) became a battlefield, with head-on confrontations daily. The poor dog could not even get a drink from the burn without being butted into the water head-first. I suppose the sight of her elevated bottom bent over the stream was just irresistible to Louis.
Eventually he became such a menace that he had to go. The dog was a nervous wreck, the cats rarely came home and our friends had begun to desert us. Not many people care for an aggressive, fully-grown sheep, although they might have been delighted to cuddle the little bundle of fluff some months ago.
The menfolk of the family were vociferous in their demands that he should be made into lamb chops and teased me with much smacking of lips and talk of mint sauce. The female contingent spoke eloquently of rugs beside the bed and warm linings for jackets. But in spite of his naughty ways, I was quite fond of him so we gave him to the Laird’s shepherd on the other side of the island. He had been neutered and was termed a ‘wedder’, and we knew that his only future was a butcher’s slab, but for years, he evaded all attempts to load him into the float for market. He had no intention of becoming a lamb chop!
Inevitably, other events claimed our attention and we lost any contact with Louis until the Island Sheep Dog Trials about two years later.
The judges, the crowds, the shepherds with their dogs had assembled on the hillside near Dalhavaig and the competition had begun. The afternoon was going well for a while and then George touched my arm.
‘Look! That’s Louis!’
I looked towards the eight sheep which had just been released from the holding pen on the hill. One very large wedder was certainly familiar! There was defiance in his stance. The poor sheep dog puffed his way up the hill as directed and circled round the back of the little flock. Seven sheep began to move as expected but what was this? One large wedder stood his ground. The dog advanced threateningly but met with not only stubborn resistance but active aggression as Louis gave him a painful butt in the ribs. The dog stood quite still. This was beyond his understanding.
Louis took himself off while the men hastily released another sheep in his stead, but the dog was too confused to respond to his master’s frantic signals and rushed forward, driving the new creature in totally the
wrong direction. The last the crowd saw of these animals was two tiny dots on the far horizon, but on my way to a call about half an hour later, I saw the same dog still chasing the same sheep! They were both near exhaustion.
Sadly (or perhaps not), Louis was eventually caught and sent to market. We gave the money to the Sheep Dog Trials Fund. It seemed appropriate!
It was inevitable that I was often called out to ovine and occasionally even bovine births. Of course, the crofters had been helping their animals for hundreds of years, but their hands are usually large and work-roughened so the presence of a nurse with a small hand and a little knowledge of anatomy was too good an opportunity to miss. In most (but sadly not all) cases, I was able to help.
But one night my patience was stretched to the limit when I was once more expected to function in the dim light of a crofter’s failing torch. The ewe was presenting one leg of a very large lamb and had been pushing for so long that she was exhausted. I couldn’t see what I was doing and the poor beast’s contractions were cutting off the blood supply to the hand that I had inside her. I know I sounded bad-tempered as I addressed the lethargic crofter.
‘Can’t you give me a better light, Johnny?’
‘Ach, no. This is ma only torch.’
‘Why don’t you get the electric connected to the byre? Your house is only a couple of feet away.’
‘Ach. It would cost me. We’ve always managed before.’
The ‘electric’ could have been run in for about three pounds and I was obviously giving my time for nothing so I felt that Johnny was being very penny-pinching.
I was unsuccessful and I suggested that he call the vet. He grumbled about the cost but ambled reluctantly to the nearby post office telephone. The vet, too, was unsuccessful and the lamb was born dead. I don’t really know if it was Johnny’s fault for leaving his ewe for so long, but I was so angry with his uncaring attitude that I said I would never come out to his ewes again.
More Tales From the Island Nurse Page 15
