The King and the Lamp

by Duncan Williamson

  I looked at all the places at the roadside to see if I could see a light of a camp-fire or something – but no, there was no light or camp-fire. But now the hoolits began, ‘cahoo-cahoo-cahoo’. It was night-time, the road was long and dreary, I got kind of afraid. I said, ‘I just can’t stay out tonight, I can’t sleep under a hedge or something,’ because I had never done it before. And I travelled on, there wasn’t a house in sight.

  Then, above the road a wee bit, I saw a light. And this road led up to it. Now my daddy had always said to me, ‘If you’re down and out, look for a light well back from the road,’ because coaches and burkers didn’t go off the road – it was too much of a pull for the horses. So I see this light up on a hillside and there was an old rough road going up the way.

  I said, ‘Probably it’s an old farmer and his wife, probably I can sleep in the shed for the night and nobody’ll know I’m there till the morning. And I’ll jump out and be gone before they ever see me.’ So I walked up, slowly up the road, but my feet were making terrible noises on the coarse stones going up it.

  I walked up and walked up and walked up, I just landed at the end of the road when out comes aman with a lantern. He had one of these old-fashioned lights in his hand, a paraffin lamp. And he sees me before I had a chance to get into the shed and lie down – he sees me. He says, ‘Come here, you!’ So naturally I was a wee bit afraid, and he came forward. He held the light up and shined it in my face – he looked at me. ‘And, hey,’ he said, ‘who are you and where do you come from?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘sir, I’m sorry – I must have taken the wrong road – I’m looking for my daddy and my mummy and the children, my wee brothers and sisters.’

  He said, ‘Say that again?’

  I said, ‘I’m looking for my mummy and my daddy and my wee brothers and sisters.’

  He said, ‘Who are you?’ And he shined the light on me, saw I was ragged and torn and my clothes weren’t very— ‘Are you one of the tinker people?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘yes, sir, I’m one of the tinker people – I’m the oldest of the family and I was in the town today back there with my mummy and daddy and I lost them – and I didn’t know what road to take. And I, I–I’m looking for them.’

  He said, ‘Come with me.’ He took me past the house right to the door, opened the door of the big shed, a barn. He said, ‘Get in there! You can sleep in there for the night, you’ll be all right!’ He closed the door and he locked it. I heard the key going ‘click’.

  I walked forward through the barn and it was heaped with straw. And then I looked – there was a stall in the one corner, in the stall was a cow and the cow was chewing hay. I looked up, there were some couples1 up above the cow’s head and on the roof there was a skylight – I could see the moon shining through it. I tried the door but the door wouldn’t open; there was no other way out.

  I said to myself, ‘I don’t like this very much. I can’t stay here. I don’t like this man very much.’ But anyway, I sat down among some straw and then I heard the key turning in the door. The door opened. And the light shone on me.

  He said, ‘Are you there?’

  I said, ‘Yes, I’m here – what is it?’

  ‘Come awa, come out a minute!’

  I came out. And this man who had the lantern was about six feet tall, red-haired, with brown eyes, a red face. He said, ‘Eh, I suppose you’ll be hungry?’

  ‘Well, sir,’ I said, ‘I’ve had nothing to eat all day.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘come with me!’ And he led me into the house.

  In the house was a big old-fashioned fire and a bare table, nothing on the table, some chairs. And there was this woman, about the same size as the man, with red hair, and freckles on her face. And I looked at the other side of the table – there was a young man who must have been his son, and on the other chair sitting was his daughter – she was red-haired! And my daddy had told me, ‘Beware of red-headed people, especially farmers or land-owners who are red-haired and have brown eyes!’ He told me they were bad people, ‘Never to be sure of red-haired people or brown-eyed folk, keep away from them.’ And me – I was as blond as a baby, fair curls down the back of my neck and blue eyes.

  And the farmer’s wife said, ‘Isn’t he a pretty little boy – it’s a pity …’

  When she said ‘it’s a pity’, didn’t I think – ‘it was a pity that I had lost my daddy and my mummy’! I didn’t know!

  She said, ‘Isn’t it a pity, isn’t he a beautiful boy! Where do these travelling tinker people get all the good looks and the beautiful hair and blue eyes?’ But I didn’t pay much attention. I heard her saying this but it didn’t dawn on me then what she was meaning.

  She said, ‘Are you hungry?’

  I said, ‘Yes, ma’am, I’m hungry.’ So she brought me a big bowl of porridge and milk.

  She said, ‘Eat that up!’ So I sat there and I was really hungry and I ate this big bowl of porridge and milk.

  Then the man took the lantern and he said, ‘You sure you’re all right now – had you enough to eat?’ I didn’t like him very much because he had a big high Roman nose, hooked nose, curly red hair and evil-looking brown eyes.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘I’ll take you to your bed!’ And he took me back into the same place. ‘You can find a place to sleep among the straw.’ And the cow was busy chewing away on the hay, chewing away.

  So I lay down but I couldn’t sleep among the straw, I couldn’t sleep. I said to myself, ‘I remember all the things that my daddy and mummy told me about red-haired people – they swore that they were burkers!’ And they had a reason to believe that, because they had known from past experience these people really would sell someone’s body for money. And I was terrified.

  Now I had left my boots in the shed when the farmer took me in to give me some supper. And I picked my boots up, put them around my neck, and I said, ‘I’ll have to find a way to escape.’ But the door was locked, I couldn’t escape. There was no way out. ‘I’ll have to escape!’ And then the moon came up again, it shined through the skylight and I said to myself, ‘That’s the way out for me!’ Me being a tinker, I knew how to get out. I said, ‘I’ll climb up that wall and I’ll get through that skylight window.’ But the thing was, the skylight was directly above the cow and the cow was tied right at the bottom. The cow wouldn’t bother me. Now there were two long wooden beams to the left of the cow’s head that went straight up to the roof. I said, ‘I’ll climb that beam and get up there, open that window, go out on the roof and escape – get going! But,’ I said again, ‘probably I’m just exaggerating a wee bit. Probably if I stay here the people’ll not bother me.’

  Then I lay for a wee while, not asleep, when I heard a horse and coach coming in to the front of the farm, with lights on it. It stopped! And the farmer came out with a lamp in his hand and he said, ‘Okay, come in and have a wee drink! I’ve got something for you tonight, I have something for you.’

  And the man who stepped down from the coach had this long coat on him, a swallow-tail coat and a tile hat. Three of them stepped from the coach, three men. And I could see by the light – with their long coats and their hats – they were the evil people my father had told me about. I could see the horse, a black horse, and a black coach parked right in front of the farm. I said to myself, ‘They’re here for me! But they’re no going to get me!’

  ‘Come in and have a drink,’ he said, ‘you can pick him up later!’ That was me they were talking about – they were going to pick me up later! They were going to burk me, take me and kill me and sell my body to the doctors.

  I said, ‘No-o-o-o, they’re no going to get me!’ So I picked the boots up, put them around my neck and started to climb the pole above the cow’s head – right to the skylight. And I climbed and I climbed. I got up and I put my arms right up, and as I reached up my arms the boots fell off my neck. But as the boots fell, I looked – o-oh, I nearly fell off too – there were legs in the boots cut from below th
e knee! Raw bloody legs, and they fell right at the cow’s nose! I managed to reach the skylight window and lifted it – it was open. I lifted it up slowly, crawled out through the hole, got out on the roof, ran along the roof. And I looked all around, it was kind of dark, and I jumped. I said, ‘I’m no caring suppose I break both my legs, I’ll crawl on the grass before I get taken with these people!’

  And then I landed, in the dung heap in the back of the place. It was lucky for me that the farmer had packed all the dung at the back of the shed. I landed right to the waist in the heap; I never even hurt a bone in my body. And I crawled out and ran away for my life, down through the moor and on to the main road. I said, ‘I’ll make my way back to the town as fast as I can!’ Now I don’t know what happened behind me, but this is what I believe happened.

  After they had something to drink, the farmer said to the three men, ‘I’ve something for you tonight, a nice young man for you. I’ve got him locked up in the byre with the cow. And he’s a good specimen. You can have him tonight!’ And they paid the farmer a lot of money – for me – for my body! The farmer said, ‘He can’t escape, I’ve got him locked up. Just grab him when you go in!’

  They opened the door and they looked all around with their lights. But they couldn’t find me, I was gone! They searched every place in the byre. They couldn’t get me.

  And then somebody said, ‘Maybe he’s hiding behind the cow.’ They took a light up beside the cow and the cow was chewing away at the grass. ‘Maybe he’s hiding under the cow’s head, at the front of it.’ And they looked. ‘Oh,’ somebody said, ‘oh look! There’s his boots – grab him!’ And they grabbed the boots and they pulled them out and looked … nothing in the boots but the legs.

  The farmer said, ‘That’s him, that’s his boots – I remember his boots.’ (He never noticed the boots had been on my back.) He said, ‘I never knew – a cow ate him, the cow has eaten him!’ And the poor simple cow was standing chewing away at its cud. It had saved my life, chewing away, chewing its cud. And they believed the cow had eaten me! Because the boots that I had found at the gate of the graveyard had legs in them, and they believed that was me.

  And I made my way back the next morning. I hid in the wood till the sun came up, then made my way back to the town. I wandered round the town and the first body I found was my mother, who was in tears looking for me.

  She said, ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘Mother, where have you been, where have I been? Look, Mummy …’ and I started to cry. I said, ‘I can’t tell ye the noo but I’ll tell you the night when you take me home to my daddy!’

  She said, ‘I’m in here looking for you – your daddy’s only along the shore a wee bit. We’ve got our camp just at the end of the town. I’m only in for to get some messages to make something for the bairns to eat. We’re frantic looking for you all night. We’re near off our heads looking for you!’

  I said, ‘Mummy, take me back.’ So my mummy took me back.

  My daddy said, ‘Where have you been?’

  I said, ‘Daddy, listen, and I’ll tell you where I’ve been …’ and I told my daddy the story that I told you. And that is the God’s honest truth – that really happened. That was me when I was near burkit many many years ago!

  1 near burkit with – almost secretly killed by

  1 couples – pairs of rafters

  THE BROONIE, SELKIES AND FAIRIES

  The Broonie on Carra

  This is a wee story that was told to me by a friend of mine way back in Argyll many many years ago, and he told me that this story was true. The country folk’s1 beliefs in the Broonie are just as strong as any traveller’s, in fact maybe a wee bit stronger. Old Duncan McVicar, the Gaelic-speaking farmer I used to work for at Auchinagoul, he wouldn’t mention his name at all – just called him ‘the wee fella’. It was the same as the travellers’ belief in God; they won’t say his name either – it’s ‘the Good Man’ they call him, the same name for Jesus.

  DOWN near Campbeltown in Argyll there’s a wee island called Carra, and the local villagers believe that that is the home of the Broonie, he stays on Carra. The island is small and there’s only one house on it. There’s water on Carra – I once walked down the steps cut out of stone to the Broonie’s well – where he’s supposed to drink his wee drop o’ water. But otherwise Carra is uninhabited.

  Now many years ago this minister, who was a great believer in the Broonie, bought the wee house on Carra and he and his wife moved out to the island. They lived very happily on Carra, they took a cow across with them to supply them with milk. The minister loved the island, he set lobster pots and he fished, did everything – he was quite happy and content. He had no family, just him and his wife.

  So this minister had a boat and he used to travel across to Bellochantuy when he needed to go to Campbeltown for his messages. But in these days there were no cars on the road, it was only a track to Campbeltown, just a horse-track, it was all done by pony and trap. Once a week he had to go across to the mainland to give a service in Campbeltown. He drove by pony and trap and always took his wife with him when he went. They would row their boat across from Carra, tie it up, borrow a pony and trap from a local farmer and drive to Campbeltown, do his service in the church and drive back, leave the pony and trap at the farm, and row across to Carra to his house.

  But one morning, it was a beautiful Sunday morning, his cow was about to calf. So he said to his wife, ‘I think we’ll take the cow out.’ Now next to his house was a wee shed where he kept a wee byre for holding the cow. He took the cow out and said, ‘Poor sowl, you’re better walkin aboot – it’ll help ye when ye’re gaunae have a calf, ye can walk aboot, for you seem very sick.’ He let the cow go.

  He and his wife went down, took the boat, rowed it across, tied the boat up, borrowed the pony and trap from the farmer and drove to Campbeltown, which is about fifteen miles. (It’s not far for a horse, a horse’ll do it in an hour and a half.) He did his service in the church, came out of the church, talked to his friends, yoked the horse and left Campbeltown. But there came a storm, a terrible time of rain and wind.

  He said to his wife, ‘Come storm or hail or rain, we’ll have to get home tonight tae Carrie.’ But the weather got worse. He drove back the fifteen miles to Bellochantuy, then on to Muasdale. When he came to Muasdale the weather was still worse, you could hardly see – the rain was battering, the waves were lashing!

  And his wife turned round to him, ‘Husband, we’ll never get home tonight to Carrie, there’s no way in the world that we’re gaunnae get across, take our own boat across tae Carrie tonight!’

  He says, ‘Wife, we’ll hev tae! What about wir cow? What’s about the wee cow – it’s out there itself – wanderin on the island the night among this rain and sleet!’ They drove the horse back to the farm, drove up to the house.

  The old farmer came out and met them. After the horse had been tied up and its harness taken off, the minister came in and had a cup of tea or a dram. The waves were lashing and the boom was coming across from Carra. So the old farmer said to the minister, ‘Look, there’s no way in the world you’re gaunnae cross that sea tonight! For the peril o’ your wife’s life …’

  But the minister says, ‘What about my wee cow!’

  He said, ‘Does the cow mean more to ye than your wife, or your own life?’

  The minister said, ‘Look, the cow’s wanderin the night – I let her loose before I left.’

  The farmer finally persuaded the minister that there’s no way in the world he was going to take a boat across that night to Carra. It was impossible! Now the cow was on its own. The island is desolate, it’s not very big, only about three acres, practically all rock. Not a soul is on the island, just the house, the byre, and the cow – no dogs, no cats, nothing. The minister was very unhappy but he stayed in the farm, the old farmer put himand his wife up for the night. He passed a terrible sleepless night because he was thinking on his wee cow, in th
e island on its own, wandering alone with the cold and the wind, and it was going to calf.

  But anyway, morning came, which it alway does. And the minister was up bright and early, it was a beautiful day. The sea was calm, the wind was gone, the rain was gone, and there was hardly a wave to be seen. And he called his wife, he couldn’t hurry quickly enough. They had a wee bit breakfast from the farmer and bade him ‘good-bye’, left the pony and trap for the farmer to take care of (the minister probably owned the trap), and hurried down across the road, about four hundred yards from the farm, through a wee field down to the boat. The minister got in the boat and his wife got in the back. They were just a young couple, in their thirties, no children.

  He got into the oars and pulled the boat across as fast as he could. And och, the sea was as calm as the palm of your hand – not a wave, nothing. The sun was shining. He rowed across to Carra. And right where you land the boat is a wee place in the rocks, there’s a few steps which go down to the Broonie’s well – and water comes out of this rock face. The minster pulls in the boat, and there’s a bolt in the wall and a ring to tie up your boat. He tied the boat to the ring, couldn’t hurry fast enough, helped his wife out of the boat, and the two of them hurried up the wee shingle path to the house. But before the minister went near the house he searched all around as far as he could see, looking for the cow. Cow was gone. He said to his wife, ‘She’s prob’ly been blown over the rocks and carried away in the tide!’ Into the house the minister went.