Sookin' Berries

by Jess Smith

  The girls worked quickly, each taking an arm and dragging him to the safety of their family home. When the head of the tinker tribe saw how extensive the man’s injuries were, he told the girls it would have been kinder to let him die where he lay. However, in the tribe was an old healer wife who set about washing and dressing the wounds of the injured man. For well over three months she tended and cared for the Highland soldier, and thanks to her nursing skill he survived against all odds.

  John McPherson, as he was called, grew stronger by the day. His Highland moor and glen, however, was under a new rule, that of King George of London, and this made him bitter and angry. All he lived for was to find his kinsmen and rise up again against the king.

  News came in little snippets into the tinker encampment, and from this information he was able to see how his country was faring. It wasn’t good news. The king’s younger son, the Duke of Cumberland, was burning a trail through people’s homes in the Highlands, seeking out followers of the Jacobite Prince and killing them. The Duke became known as the Butcher, and only the brave uttered his name in public.

  John became more depressed as each day passed, with tinkers bringing in more tales of gloom and doom. One day he told the chieftain of the tinkers that he must take his leave and find his people.

  ‘Why do you want to do this?’ he was asked.

  ‘To avenge and put right the wrongs spreading in my land.’

  ‘How do you propose to conduct this uprising, considering that government troops are everywhere killing anyone who supports the Jacobites?’

  John sat down upon a rock. His mind was in turmoil, but he felt that surely others felt the same as he did. ‘I must do something, only a coward does nothing.’

  The chieftain of the tinker clan joined him on the rock, and for a moment said nothing. Then he spoke. ‘I have been hearing the most terrible news,’ he said, ‘The clan chiefs have accepted defeat and have signed a declaration of allegiance to King George. In recognition of this allegiance, land has been promised to them – vast acres. The old clan boundaries are no more. This country will never again fly a flag of her own making. From this day forth your pride is a trampled memory. It is best that you accept these changes. The authorities have also promised to stop people speaking in Gaelic and have forbidden the wearing of the tartan, so even if you manage to raise others to rebellion, they will have no colours, no natural language and no place under the new system in control of Scotland.’

  Devastated by this knowledge, John ran off to find solace in remains of the ancient Caledonian pine forest which encircled the campsite. His land, his Gaelic language, his tartan were no more, but there in the forest of his ancestors he could still be a Highland Scot.

  To add to his heavy burden, he pictured in his mind the low-roofed cottages of his homeland, once full of the smell of cooking bread, and surrounded by playful children, now filling the night sky with an eerie orange and red glow from the continual burning. He imagined shepherd’s dogs, lost and bewildered, searching among the dead of Culloden field for their masters. In his mind’s eye he saw old people left out in the cold without shelter. He was becoming more and more depressed with each vision of his destroyed homeland, until a young boy broke his train of gloomy thoughts by saying that supper was ready.

  As he walked slowly back into the circle of people who had saved his wretched life, he stopped for a moment and looked at them. He counted the youths and the adults and was pleased to see how healthy they were. ‘I could begin my uprising here among these tinkers,’ he thought, suddenly feeling that here might lie the seed of rebellion against the government barbarians. He further thought, ‘They are wise to the ways of the moors, with knowledge that the government troops don’t have. There are thirty or more here, and the women, they too must possess a great knowledge of the glens and hill roads.’

  His mood changed; he became filled with hope and wasted no time in sharing his thoughts with the chieftain. He wasn’t having any of it, however, and told John so. John jumped angrily to his feet and shouted, ‘But surely you can’t allow murder and destruction to blaze around you and do nothing!’

  ‘Why should we put our lives in danger? When did you ever think of our kind? My cousins from Nairn and Dingwall are lying dead among the hundreds of corpses on the battlefield.’ He spread his hand across the place and continued, ‘From this day on we shall strive for survival. We shall support no man nor defend any land. We will live at one with the earth as our ancient ancestors did. We are nobody!’

  John was furious, and shouted, ‘Well, I am McPherson of McPherson; my ancestors fought for this land, and if I have to wear my crest on my chest, and carry my banner single-handedly, then so be it. Tomorrow I take my leave.’

  The chief faced John and said sternly, ‘Listen to me now, my fine proud fellow, while I tell you who we are. When you see upon the heathery hillside our great king of the glen, the antlered monarch of the deer, he who has no foe bar man, does he have a name? The mighty eagle that soars high above his prey and hovers for ages waiting to strike, does he have a name? Where in the world is there a more cunning creature than the wily fox, does he have a name? No! Well, my fine friend, why think that you and I are better than these animals? We do not need a name, John; we are not different to the birds and animals of earth. Go and sleep on this wisdom, and then see after breakfast if you want to go and take on the might of Cumberland.’

  Confused, angry and rejected, John curled under his torn plaid and fell into a troubled sleep. He hadn’t lain for long when a shrill whistle broke his slumber. Word was spreading like wildfire – Cumberland’s butchers were heading to the campsite! One by one the tinkers tumbled from their beds and gathered like a flock of birds around the chief. He quietened the children and ordered no one to speak unless he nodded.

  A young woman came up behind John and ripped off his plaid, handing him an odd-looking pair of half-breeches. The chief whispered to him, ‘Put them on now!’ John had not heard the old man speak with such authority before. Pulling on the trousers and tying a leather strap around his waist, he saw, much to his horror, his tartan plaid burning furiously on the campfire.

  Flames shot into the air, lighting the blood-spattered faces of the oncoming troops. They were tired and needed food. Orders came thick and fast for the tinkers to provide food and drink for over forty burly men. There wasn’t even enough in the camp for three.

  But before a word was uttered in reply, one of the troopers noticed John. He looked different to the others. The soldier shouted at him to step forward. John said nothing, yet he’d foreseen that this would happen, and was determined to take on all his enemies or fight to the death defending his proud clan name.

  The officer in charge, a big fellow with a thick mop of red hair, walked round him, looking him up and down. He lifted a whip of thin, almost razor-sharp, leather and struck John hard across the shoulders. He flinched, but for some reason said nothing, not even giving a cry of pain. ‘Who are you?’ The question was spat from the soldier’s thin mouth. He continued, ‘Tinkers are giving Highlanders sanctuary. Has this band of vagabonds protected you? Again I demand, what is your name?’

  John drew in his breath, but try as he might the words did not come. He heard in his head the reply, ‘McPherson of McPherson’, but his voice spoke softly: ‘I am nobody.’

  The chief smiled at him, but he saw that the danger was not over. If these evil men were not dealt with, death would come among his people. If the troops didn’t leave soon, John, for all his pretence, would feel a sharp bayonet through his ribs.

  The chief looked across at an old bent-backed woman and nodded. In a flash she reached into her apron pocket, took out some chicken bones, rattled them in her cupped hands and scattered them at the feet of the officer in charge. She pushed out a pointed chin, and in an unknown language, began to chant and mutter. A silence spread over the visitors, as they waited for their leader’s response. The big red-headed man went pale. Eyes, bulging like eggs in
their sockets, were fixed on the scattered bones at his feet. ‘Old hag, what do you see?’ he asked with quivering lips.

  ‘A face of dread, a pool of red, dreams of demons in your head. Go from the place now, or take upon you and yours, for generations to come, the curse of the tinker!’

  John was amazed at the speed with which the tyrants left. A great sigh of relief spread through the camp. Mothers gathered their little ones and went back into their tents of deerskin and rags. Two youths stayed on watch, and one by one the others, before settling down for the night, smiled and touched John on the shoulder – he was now one of them.

  He later asked the old woman what her bone scattering was all about, and why had the officer run off terrified. ‘Laddie, I’ve never yet met a red-head that wasn’t superstitious.’

  Next day John decided to use his strength wisely instead of recklessly. Under cover of darkness he would seek out Highland families and help them to reach safety.

  Over the span of several years, he undertook many exploits with the help of his tinker family. Stories of his heroism spread across the land. From shore to shore his adventures were told with pride. No one ever discovered his true identity – he was simply known as ‘The Flame among the Heather’.

  11

  THE HEAD

  I first heard this lovely story from travellers who were staying near Comrie, Perthshire. I was fascinated by it and tried for years to find out more about it. My search led nowhere, until I was thrown a lifeline by a friend who told me it had been collected in a book. A man from the Borders called Wilson had heard gypsies tell it at a gathering round the campfire. He thought it was such a wonderful story he put it in a collection of tales.

  It took me a long time, but eventually I tracked down a copy of his book. Although he had given it a different title, it was almost the same tale. In Wilson’s book it’s called ‘The Maid of Lednick’. My version is called ‘The Head’.

  The story that follows is adapted from Wilson with a chunk of my own story thrown in.

  At the time of the Battle of Culloden, in the beautiful Strathearn village of Comrie, lived a cotton weaver who had the same name as the village. Widower John Comrie shared his home with his lovely daughter Marion. Although he was a greedy man, known for his hard dealings with other people, he was also truthful and honest. But circumstances have a way of changing people, and our John was about to see just how much...

  Marion spent most of her time wondering along the banks of the River Lednick. She was considered a wee bit eccentric, and folks put this down to her being raised by her late granny. This old lady had filled the lassie’s head with tales of the Devil’s Cauldron, a swirling pool formed by a cataract of the river.

  The tales Marion’s granny had told her were mainly about the brownies, magical little men who lived in the area and danced around the Devil’s Cauldron, and also of the ‘Spirit o’ Rolla’, a waterfall whose voice roared like thunder in its cascading waters.

  When visitors spoke of the area’s beauty they spoke only of what could be seen by the eye, but to Marion the wooded valley and the high windy summits, the flowing river with its many cascading falls, held more interest and importance for her than it would for a mere lover of the view. This was her spiritual home, a little world peopled with imaginary beings, who were all her friends. Her beliefs as a child were woven like threads of gold through her youth and into womanhood. This place was her birthright; ever since those early years she had long since been embraced and enchanted by it.

  If you were to sit on the edge of the basin in that mysterious glen, overhung with thick trees and shrubs, amidst the roar of falling water, you would hear the hissing, boiling, labouring Cauldron, lashed into a thousand eddies. It sounded like twisted, agonised serpents, shrieking their eternal hatred against the stream below. Add this to the noise of thunder in the heavens and many a sane person might be forgiven for thinking they had seen or heard something not of this world. In fact they might even start to believe that in the hidden caverns below lived those creatures known as brownies.

  Some even went further, and said that the Devil could be heard calling on the Spirit o’ Rolla to send water down for his cauldron. To those not accustomed to the place, it certainly wasn’t somewhere to get lost in. Anybody of a timid disposition was likely to be terrified out of their wits!

  To dreamy Marion, however, this was a world of scented blossoms and dreams. Her favourite time was autumn, not summer. The summer brought visitors, and there was less water in the stream, but when autumn with its rainstorms came to her favourite stream, she could once more hear the shrieking voice of the angry spirit as the river flooded dark and swollen.

  In her wanderings in those secluded and bewitched places, Marion was generally alone, until one day her favourite cousin, Walter Comrie, began to accompany her. He was a son of a brother of her father’s who had gone abroad and died, leaving a large fortune to Walter, who was placed under the charge of Marion’s father, John.

  It had never seemed important to her to have a friend; her secret world of imaginary creatures filled her thoughts with enough companions. Yet Walter Comrie, a handsome and well mannered young gentleman, soon became the love of her life. Seeing their constant companionship and how they held hands, it soon became apparent to all the residents of Comrie that they were sweethearts.

  The people of the village would comment as the pair walked along arm in arm staring at each other with devotion, ‘See how they look into each other’s eyes? What a handsome pair they make! We’ll be hearing the wedding bells shortly, no doubt.’

  Something else was gossiped about. She was a northern lass, he a fine English gent. ‘But love is a power no man can divide.’ This was the reason many gave for the unusual match of a Scottish woman and English man.

  Walter may have had English blood flowing through his veins, but he forgot about it when he heard rumours of the plight of the Young Pretender, Bonny Prince Charlie. Feverish stories were told of how he was the rightful heir to Scotland, and also of how mighty a Highland warrior he was. Walter had no doubts. He decided to carry the Stuart banner and join the Jacobites, the Prince’s army in Scotland.

  He told his lovely Marion that when the Highland troops came marching through Comrie on their way to Inverness, led by the gallant James, Duke of Perth, he would join them. Telling her was the hardest thing he had ever done. Marion was a peaceful lass, and carried no banner for any soldier’s cause, regardless of who or what was being fought for. The boiling, rushing waters of the Devil’s Cauldron were enough excitement for her. ‘A weapon is a weapon, no matter whose hand wields it,’ she’d tell anyone who was remotely interested in warfare. She would then add wisely, ‘Death is death!’

  It was as they sat close together watching the falling torrents at the edge of the Devil’s Cauldron after a heavy rainfall that he told her of his plans.

  Her answer was as he’d expected. ‘What are you thinking of? You cannot leave me to go and fight a battle that has nothing to do with you! I won’t hear of it.’ She turned and gestured with her arms to the Spirit o’ Rolla, whose voice thundered within the roaring waters. ‘Do you hear this fine fellow talking of joining a Highland army, who cannot speak a word of Gaelic?’ She stood up, and if he’d not pulled her back, she would almost certainly have tumbled over into the basin. She was crying and almost inconsolable, but continued pleading with him. ‘And when orders are called, how will you know what they are?’

  She held him tightly, sobbing deeply. ‘Just because I believe in the brownies doesn’t mean my heart is not flesh. Can’t you see how it will break into a thousand pieces if you fail to come home to me? Stay and I will ask them to teach you songs and music. Come every day with me and we can delight in their tales. Oh please, Walter, don’t go!’

  Then she pushed him away from her and shouted, ‘If you do go, I will ask the Rolla to send an earthquake – one that will open a passage into the brownies’ underworld. They’ll steal you and hide you until
the battle is over.’

  ‘Oh Marion, Marion, why don’t you give up this nonsense? Your little elves may be true to you, but to me, my dear, they are nothing more than imaginings. What would the people of Comrie and Strathearn think of me, a healthy young man, wandering peacefully through these woodlands while a battle for this land rages further north? You are right, I do not speak the language of the Gaels, but my heart speaks it. And it tells me I must desert you and take up arms for the cause. I know Comrie is famous for its earthquakes and fairies, but would it not be better to be known for the fact that a mere Englishman came here and threw his weight on the side of Scotland’s rightful heir?’

  ‘I don’t care a button who rules Scotland! They will have no say over flowing waters, yellow broom and weeping willow trees. Anyway, what if you never come back? What shall become of me? Am I to wander these places day and night, and torture myself with seeing your reflection in the Cauldron, hearing your dear voice whispering to me through the bushes? Oh please, Walter, again I beg you, don’t leave me.’

  But Walter had already decided that his destined path was to join James, Duke of Perth, in fighting for the scion of Scotland’s ancient kings. Marion watched her lover walk off down the winding track, leaving a heart so broken at that moment of her young life that nothing would mend it, not even the magic of the brownies.

  The story of Culloden is told throughout the world, and it is no secret that Walter fought gallantly. He certainly put his heart and soul into Bonny Prince Charlie’s cause, but again it is no secret how that unfortunate struggle ended.

  News spread throughout the land of the brave men who were now fleeing the wrath of the enemy, and many homes were opened up to hide them and assist their escape. When word reached Comrie that Walter was a survivor of the battle, all wondered how to protect their hero, especially when a proclamation was broadcast, putting a high price on his head as a traitor to the Crown. Many approached John to see if Walter needed help or a place to hide, but he said that no sign or word had so far come from the brave Englishman.