by Jess Smith
Then came the letter from Mammy.
Round the corner from her house was a wee low-roofed cottage, Daddy knew the old man who lived there. He, getting too elderly, had decided to move over to Aberdeen with his niece. The rent would be affordable. ‘Did we want to come up to Macduff?’
I was like a bairn on a Christmas morning. ‘Oh Davie, please say we can go.’ The thought of living in a new place beside my parents was drawing pictures of wonderful excitement.
I had deep pangs pounding in my breast. Would Davie, who was a Crieff man through and through, say no... or maybe yes. I watched his face, then he said, ‘I’m away out to think this over.’
Hours passed, and there was still no sign. It made me think my long-suffering husband was not ready to up sticks and go far north; fifty miles north of Aberdeen, to be precise. However, just after midnight I heard his key in the door. If extra persuasion was needed I’d baked a thick chocolate cake.
‘Well, lad?’ I asked, pushing near half the cake under his nose, and waited on his answer.
‘Yip!’
I could hardly contain my excitement, because when Davie said ‘yip’, it came without conditions. We were leaving Crieff and this nightmare prison of a house.
That night we cuddled and laughed with excitement at our forthcoming new ground.
‘My birth sign is “Pisces”, the two fishes. Macduff is a fishing port. All the signs are there—we will be happy.’ I was heart-sure. Davie joked, reminding me his sign was Cancer. ‘Plenty of them crawling among seaweed on the shores of the Moray Firth,’ he said, and tickled me, pretending to be a crab.
We were both only twenty-one, a lifetime spread out before us. Macduff, I was certain, would be just the first place of many more.
Sandy and Margaret were heart-sorry to say goodbye, especially as we were taking their only grandchildren from them, but offers to visit would soon find them not far behind us.
4
THE BIG HUNTER WITH HIS POACHER COAT ON
I have a wee tale to share with you before we all take ourselves up north. John Macalister, a half cousin of mine who had promised to flit us in his wee van, was helping with our packing one night when he brought in a large rabbit some mate of his had trapped. I told him to take it away, because I’d no stomach for skinning or gutting. Anyway, all my cutlery and cooking utensils were packed in boxes. Over a bottle of beer, he and Davie got talking about poaching and trapping and so on. When John left, Davie said. ‘I think I’ll go out for a wee turn at the poaching.’
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Catch myself a goose.’
‘Davie, did you not hear me tell John all my utensils are in boxes?’
‘Dad would pluck and skin it, if I caught one, and Mother would cook it. We could call it our going-away feast from Crieff.’
This was my husband’s one and only attempt at goose-stalking.
Old Tam, a neighbour, had given Davie a long, heavy wool coat some time ago.
‘A richt poacher’s yin,’ Tam joked, showing Davie all the concealed buttons and hidden pockets. Davie thanked his neighbour, but as he never considered wearing anything other than trendy Beatle jackets, he put it away, not intending to be seen in it. So imagine my surprise when he unearthed this sinister-looking garment to go goose-stalking.
All that day, fog and damp air covered the countryside. Geese and ducks could be heard flying above the blanket cover of mist. ‘Surely I’ll get myself one, there’s hundreds up there,’ he said, pointing upwards, the poacher’s coat hanging loosely over his frame.
Before I could close my half-opened mouth he was gone, swallowed up by the mist that swirled round his ankles, billowing up into that coat. All he left behind was the eerie noise of his footsteps on the pavement outside our soon-to-be-vacated house. I imagined him rounding a corner in the street. ‘My God,’ I thought, ‘he’ll frighten folks to death. He looks like Jack the Ripper.’ One glance at the mist, tinged orange by the street lights, and the door was slammed shut, and my kettle boiled for a nice warm cup of tea.
For a moment I peered through a slit in the kitchen curtains, convinced he was joking and that I would soon hear his knocking on the door, but no sound came and I began to worry. Feeling a wee bit uneasy about the thick, ghostly mist outside, I closed the window I’d left ajar, and then ran through the house, drawing the curtains. Johnnie pushed his tiny arm into mine and asked for a biscuit. I gave him several, along with a box of Lego. Then, when Stephen filled his nappy, thankfully concerns about Davie diminished while I busied myself with the bairns. The hours passed slowly, and my boys were long bedded and asleep when those familiar footsteps brought my man home. ‘Is that you, Davie?’ I asked, before opening the door.
‘Woman of the house, open the door and let your hunter in,’ he joked.
‘Have you caught a goose, then?’
‘Have I indeed. Feast you eyes on this big juicy fella.’ Davie threw open his poacher’s coat and rammed both hands eagerly inside the hidden pockets. From one he took out his father’s priest (salmon thumper), and from the other a big, brightly-coloured, plastic, DECOY DUCK!
The sight in front of me I can only describe as unbelievable!
The fog had turned to rain and soaked him to the marrow. Exhausted, but still smiling, he made me promise hand on heart not to tell a living soul what had happened—that he had seen the duck sitting in a field and lay on his belly for ages stalking it. When he decided that it must be an injured bird, he jumped up and charged. Not until its head went one way, and body the other, did it dawn on him what it was he’d been stalking in thick mist as he crouched for hours on the freezing ground.
The poacher’s coat was handed in to big Wull Swift, a real life rabbit man. He, standing well over six feet, would be better suited to its size.
I never was one for breaking promises, so only after getting my red-faced husband’s permission have I ventured to reveal to you the tale of ‘The Big Hunter, with His Poacher Coat On.’
5
THE REAL LOCH NESS MONSTER
Stories of hunting, shooting and fishing were common among travellers while I was a bairn. Depending on how they were told, certain tales stayed vividly cemented in my head. This tale I wish to share with you now is about the most feared hunter in the whole world, and for two reasons it has never left me. One is the legend that is intertwined with it, and the second is its theme of greed. Greed is a monumental sin, but one that can grant you the gift of immortality if the old Devil likes you for it.
Are you one of those who believes in the Loch Ness Monster? If you are, great! If not, then perhaps after this story you’ll be of a different mind. I leave it entirely up to you, my dear friend. Sit down, and I hope you are near a pond or some other stretch of water, though it would be far better if you were sitting on the shoreline of Loch Ness. Never mind where you are, just let me paint the scene.
Around three centuries ago, Peggy Moore, a heaving giant of a woman, lived in a tent on the side of Loch Ness with her husband and son.
Quiet folks living over in Drumnadrochit kept well away from Mistress Moore’s abode. Not because her family were tinkers, but simply because folks were terrified of her brute strength. For around the expanse of the loch it was well known that she was as uncouth and unkind a woman as ever breathed good air. Her long-suffering husband and son were kept back-weary working to feed and clothe that awful brute of a woman. She was not born with her huge bulk—oh no, it was sheer unadulterated greediness alone that was responsible. Folks said, as they were wont to do in wild and isolated places of Scotland, that she was the offspring of a witch’s womb. They further said her husband had been put under a spell and enslaved to do her bidding. And adding to this household, the result of a single passionate night when the hypnotised husband was robbed of his reason, came the son.
When rising in the morning Peggy ate her way through pound upon pound of thick milky porridge and loaves of crusty bread. Mid-morning, she’d thump the bare earth
outside her canvas home screaming for more food, and this, sad to say, was provided by her deathly-pale and emaciated kin.
‘Get me meat, ye useless objects,’ she’d howl at them, ‘work and work until I have my fill.’
And this the sad pair did. Cutting trees and selling firewood from early morn until sundown, they chopped and sawed until exhaustion took over. Then, before falling onto their small, narrow, straw-filled mattresses, they handed over every penny they had earned.
This Mistress Moore was not just a greedy bisom—oh no, she also had cunning in her bones, so she did. Because some of the hard-earned money went into a purse she hid under a horse-hair bed, to be saved for the beef market. And on the day our tale unfolds, farmers were congregating over by Castle Urquhart to sell the best cuts of prime meat.
With a thump and a kick she sent her menfolk off earlier than usual that morning, followed by a sharp warning not to come home until the stars were sparkling in the sky above.
Keeking from her tent door, she watched until the men were gone into the forest before counting her money. ‘Oh man, ye look fair braw, ma bonny bawbees, I’ll git maself a rare bag o’ the best juicy meat today, oh a grand day, tis this.’
No sooner had she lifted her massive frame—which, it may be said, weighed half a ton—onto two swollen feet, and pushed open her tent door, when two shepherds came coyly by.
‘Hello tae ye, Mistress Moore,’ they said, pulling cloth toories from their heads and making sure there was enough space between them and her tent. It was usual for the said woman to throw a punch and ask questions later. Not this day, however. Hardly glancing in their direction, she covered her shoulders with a shawl of grey wool, bigger than any normal family blanket, and began to waddle off down the road.
‘Mistress, we have been having terrible times wi’ a giant cat-like creature,’ one said, still clutching his headgear and keeping a safe distance behind. The other made up to her and tried to get her attention by overtaking. Not one bit did she tolerate such intrusion, and lashed out at the poor fellow with an elbow to his chest. Several feet in the air went the poor man, landing hard on the rough shale shore.
The other shepherd stopped to assist his friend, shouting after Peggy Moore, ‘it can rip a calf from its mother and crunch through a sheep’s skull with one close of its jaw. We canna find it, so you had better mind yer back, tinker woman.’
The earth stopped shuddering as she halted her footsteps. Only her head did she turn to dart evil glances at the men, who stood there with plaidies covering their shoulders and cromachs to hand. One look in her direction, and the three accompanying sheepdogs curled around their masters’ feet like earthworms.
‘I hiv nae fear o’ ony livin’ creature.’ She lifted a fist into the air.
‘But Mistress Moore, this is a demon cat wi’ the power of a lion, the jaw o’ a tiger and the stealth o’ a panther. Tak’ care an’ keep a fire burning in the darkest pairt o’ the nicht.’
‘Let it dae its worst. If it has the courage tae come within a hundred feet o’ me, then little does it ken Peggy Moore.’ With those words ringing over the still waters of Loch Ness, she rounded shoulders, laughed loudly like a witch cackling through the flames of a burning cauldron fire, and was gone, clutching her bulging purse.
At Castle Urquhart, heavy oak tables were covered by blood-dripping cuts of finest beef, lying in mouth-watering heaps.
‘Oh, ma wee beauties,’ she said, stroking at the sinews running through the pounds of flesh.
Bluebottles circled over the meat, but fell dead at one swat from her massive forearm. ‘Deevils o’ disease, dinna so much as glance at ma beef,’ she whispered to several advancing flies, which took one look at her slit eyes and buzzed away. Beneath the tables a dog growled at a hissing cat over one scrap of meat that had fallen on the ground. Peggy stood hard on the cat’s tail before sending it into oblivion with a kick.
‘What can I get you this fine day, Mistress Moore? Maybe a handful o’ this for stewing?’ The blood-splattered butcher, with his cleaver clutched tightly just in case she fancied throwing a wallop at him, thought she’d be looking for stew beef, but this wasn’t to her satisfaction, not that day. She’d enough money to afford the finest rump.
She half-smiled, not taking her greedy eyes off the ruby red flesh, and said, ‘give me this lot’.
‘I’ll charge ye dear, for that’s ma finest rump, is that.’
‘Are ye saying ah canna pey fer ma grub?’ her eyes narrowed and a growl came from deep within, as she produced the purse thick with money in her clenched hand.
‘No way would I bring your guid self down, Peggy, my fine big lass. Yer money is as guid as ony others’,’ he said greedily, catching sight of how much the purse held.
Instantly the meat was rolled up and pushed inside her deerskin bag, and she hurried away home to cook and gorge before those weary men came back.
It was quite a distance from the Castle marketplace to her tent. Since she was so heavy, getting home usually took longer for her than for a body of normal frame. Several times she stopped to lean against a tree and get her breath before moving on.
Now, let us for a moment sneak back to the tent. Quiet it was, with nobody around. Silent enough to attract a certain accursed cat which was searching for cover to hide out until dark. All territory was forbidden to him, yet here seemed a place of sanctuary from those death-minded shepherds, in here there was peace. Night would bring him out, refreshed and ready for another kill, but in here he’d rest. Eyes darting in every direction the beast crept up to the tent. Inside it was near pitch-dark, perfect. One last sniff of the air to check that no human was on his tail, and in he went, until his body rubbed up against the natural covering of deer skin and bracken at the furthermost end of the tent where Peggy Moore would eventually lay down her body to sleep.
At long last Peggy stood panting outside her abode. Her weight, added to the bulk of raw meat with her, was all she could cope with, but the burden was forgotten when inside. She thrust her eager hand into a wooden box and retrieved a large iron pot. Quickly firing up the smouldering embers and adding more sticks to her fire, she soon had a pot ready for the contents of her skin bag. Sparks hissed and spat as the cold meat met the hot pan. Peggy could hardly contain her desire for food as the aroma curled up her nostrils, sending taste buds into spasms of ecstasy that only a greed-driven gourie (woman) could experience.
‘Lovely, mmmm, my, what a feast I’ll have.’ She squirmed her gigantic wobbling buttocks from side to side, and like an eager kitten toying with a bird she poked a skewer into the frying flesh. The cooking meat sent smells of delight into every corner of the tent—aye, and the cat smelt it too. Awakened now, he’d been watching as she wobbled, muttering all the while. He half-closed his yellow eyes and opened keen nostrils. While she licked the meat juices from her fingers, he licked his lips. The meat was cooked and the feast began! She tore off strips with her bare hands, and no sooner had one slid down her gulping thrapple when another and another followed. She gorged like a demon possessed, running her tongue up and down her forearm and licking the juice that escaped. Gristle and bone were also crunched and gulped, until nothing, not even a saucer of gravy, remained that might feed her hungry menfolk when night would bring them home starving. But another creature was beginning to feel hunger pangs. It watched as Peggy shoved the meat down that gargling throat, and to his empty stomach that great bulk of a neck looked quite delectable. Her day had reached its fulfilment and now she was exhausted. After her trip to the market, cooking and eating, she just had to rest, so down onto the mattress went that massive frame with a great thud.
From the shadows of her tent a face, grinning with menace, watched her in deathly silence. Cats are not known as impulsive eaters, unlike dogs and certain humans; they have patience, and can wait to savour their moment. Yet how could he, this demonic creature of the shadows, stay patient when such a prize lay sprawled before him? Lifting his slender body with stealthy m
ovements he crouched above the half-sleeping woman. For a little while he scanned the meat-stained face. Then very slowly he positioned one leg over her shoulders until he stood directly straddling her head.
Aware not all was right, she opened her eyes and stared into those yellow orbs! This was his time, when his prey froze in terror. He waited on the smell of fear. But it did not come from Peggy Moore!
‘If ye think tae sink yer green and yella teeth intae ma neck, pussy, then think again!’
Suddenly the cat creature realised, as she picked him up and threw him the length of the tent, he’d met his match. This prey wouldn’t go as easy to his stomach as the market meat went to hers. He stood rigid, stretched his spine, unsheathed sharp claws and pounced. Claws and teeth tore a lump from Peggy Moore’s neck. Blood, hot and steaming, poured freely from the gaping wound. This should have shocked her to death. But instead of being sent into the throes of terror, the big woman rose onto splayed feet, sucked her head into her shoulders and screamed, ‘give me all you’ve got, cat!’
From then on it was life or death for them both, as fist met claw and kick met paw. Scratching and ripping, punching and gouging, they rolled and wrestled, neither giving in. Peggy was torn and tattered, while the cat limped and bled. For a minute, when it seemed as if all strength was gone, they rallied and tore into each other again. They rolled out of the tent, among the shale, over boulders, tripping over dried tree roots at the loch’s edge, then, in one last desperate grapple they met and rolled over, and were both swallowed by the deep waters of Loch Ness.
Down they gurgled, clinging to each other, neither giving in until their lungs filled to the top and death claimed them both. Only a tiny trail of air bubbles popped and evaporated into nothing as the monsters breathed their last: she a mistake of Nature, he a ferocious hunter who had met his match when he had taken on Mistress Moore.
