A Rope--In Case

by Lillian Beckwith

  Bello:

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  About the author:

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  Contents

  Lillian Beckwith

  Dedication

  Vocabulary

  A Rope—In Case

  A Change in the Weather

  Winter Fuel

  Venison Supper

  Romance

  A Vest for St. Peter

  ‘No Ortinary . . .’

  Winter Food

  Angus, the Fisherman

  The Wife of Little Ian

  Farewell to Farquhar

  Manure With Cream

  Poacher’s Wedding

  A Day in the Hills

  The ‘Sheehan’

  Lillian Beckwith

  A Rope-In Case

  Lillian Beckwith

  Lillian Comber wrote fiction and non-fiction for both adults and children under the pseudonym Lillian Beckwith. She is best known for her series of comic novels based on her time living on a croft in the Scottish Hebrides.

  Beckwith was born in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, in 1916, where her father ran a grocery shop. The shop provided the background for her memoir About My Father’s Business, a child’s eye view of a 1920s family. She moved to the Isle of Skye with her husband in 1942, and began writing fiction after moving to the Isle of Man with her family twenty years later. She also completed a cookery book, Secrets from a Crofter’s Kitchen (Arrow, 1976).

  Since her death, Beckwith’s novel A Shine of Rainbows has been made into a film starring Aidan Quinn and Connie Nielsen, which in 2009 won ‘Best Feature’ awards at the Heartland and Chicago Children’s Film Festivals.

  Dedication

  For Ted

  Vocabulary

  Cailleach

  Mo ghaoil

  Ceilidh

  Strupak

  Oidhche mhath!

  Cnoc

  Sithean

  Ciamar a Tha

  Old Woman

  My dear

  An impromptu meeting

  A cup of tea and a bite

  to eat

  Goodnight

  Knoll

  A Fairy Dwelling

  ‘How are you?’

  (Approximate

  pronunciation)

  Kyle-yak

  Mo gale

  Cayley

  Stroopak

  Oi-she-va

  Crock

  Sheehan

  Camera How?

  A Rope—In Case

  The March morning was full of mist; grey and inscrutable the swirling formations loped in from the sea to hover uncertainly over the village of Bruach so that the houses and crofts vanished and re-emerged in a constantly changing pattern; the land appeared to be adrift in a thick silence through which the distant throbbing of the burn and the nearer rasp of tide on shingle barely penetrated. ‘For every day of mist in March there’ll be an inch of snow in May,’ the old crofters predicted. This was our fourth day of mist in the first fourteen days of March so it looked as if we must expect an exceedingly cold May.

  I had finished breakfast, milked my cow and fed the poultry and now I was preparing to catch the bus which would take me on the first stage of my visit to the mainland. The preparations entailed no searching of a wardrobe and debating which garments I should wear. A trip to the mainland meant an early morning start and an evening return and as the weather could change dramatically in that time it was necessary always to play safe and wear one’s toughest shoes, well polished for the occasion, and one’s most dependable waterproof which would have a sou-wester tucked into a pocket. I dropped my shoes into the shopping bag I was taking and pulled on a pair of thick socks and gumboots over my stockings. The path was wet and muddy so I would change into shoes when I reached the bus and leave the socks and gumboots under a seat ready for my return. Giving the fire a final damping down with wet peats and dross I reached up and took my waterproof from the hook beside the door and with it a length of rope which hung on an adjoining hook. It was instinct now to open the door cautiously so as not to disturb any wild life that might have ventured near in the early silence. I was so often rewarded for my caution; perhaps with the sight of a buzzard surveying the world from the top of the clothes line post; perhaps it would be a rabbit drinking from the hens’ water bowl or a seal close inshore eyeing the cottages as if he would like to be invited in for breakfast. But then again it might only be a hooded crow loitering with such intent over my chicken run that I had to clap my hands to drive him away. This morning the mist hid any secret there might have been and I pulled the door shut behind me. It was unthinkable to lock a door in Bruach even when one was leaving the house for a whole day. Outside I paused, looking at the length of rope I still held in my hand. Foolish of me, I thought, it wasn’t necessary to take a rope with me on what after all was to be in the nature of a day off from work. For a moment I hesitated wondering whether I should go back and replace the rope on its hook but with a shrug I dropped it into the bag along with my shoes. It seemed less trouble to take it.

  When I had first come to the Hebrides Morag, my landlady had advised me always to ‘take a rope—in case’, and when I moved into my own cottage a length of rope hung on the hook next to my outdoor clothes so that it was a habit to reach for a coat in one hand and the rope in the other. In fact it had become such an essential adjunct that I felt bereft if I was not carrying it somewhere about my person. Over and over again I had proved its usefulness. I might need it to catch a calf or a sheep; to carry a bundle of hay to the cow or a can of paraffin from the grocer; to tie a bundle of driftwood I had collected, or a sack of peat; to secure a boat; make a temporary repair to a sagging fence or a halter for a horse. In stormy weather there was nothing so good as a rope tied round the waist for preventing one’s clothes from billowing up above one’s head. Excepting when they were going on holiday or to church the Bruach crofters were rarely without a length of rope, either coiled around an arm or protruding from a pocket.

  The bus driver blew a blast on his horn as I came out of the mist and I suspected that either I was late or he was in a bad temper.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I began, ‘Am I late?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’ His voice was affable. ‘It’s just that I want to see to a couple of my snares on the way so I thought I’d just hurry folks up a bit so I could get started.

  Such unscheduled changes caused no complaint in Bruach and the driver was equally willing to similarly oblige his passengers.

  I sat down beside Janet. ‘You have a good poc,’ she commented, noticing my capacious shopping bag. Janet always managed to make her observations with a sort of disparaging admiration so that I felt I had to excuse the size of my bag by telling her I was expecting to bring home a fair number of purchases.

  ‘You’re not wantin’ to catch the train, then?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ I told her.

  ‘I’m thinkin’ it’s just as well,’ she comforted. ‘For the dear knows how long it will take him to see to his snares.’

  ‘Ach, that man an’ his snares,’ interposed Erchy, who was sitting behind us. ‘He forgets he’s here for drivin’ the bus when he’s after the rabbits.’


  It took the driver no more than a quarter of an hour to attend to his snares and when he returned he dumped three dead rabbits on top of the pile of mailbags. In three of the private mail-boxes where he stopped to collect letters he left a rabbit in exchange.

  ‘What’s the time?’ he asked, resuming his seat after the last mail-box had been emptied. No-one replied. My watch had not functioned for months and yet I had hardly been inconvenienced by the lack of it. Time was so rarely referred to in Bruach. The bus driver repeated the question in Gaelic, shouting at old Farquhar who was very deaf. Ponderously the old man took out his cherished watch and showed him. ‘We’d best get a move on,’ the driver warned. The mist still enveloped us but on the Bruach road one could be fairly certain of meeting no other traffic so early in the morning. He put his foot well down on the accelerator.

  ‘Oh, how I hate the mist!’ said Janet feelingly. There were murmurs of almost passionate assent from the rest of the passengers. Bruachites, especially the women, did indeed dislike the mist. It seemed to emphasize the loneliness and isolation of their lives, cutting them off from the reassuring view of other cottages where they knew company was their’s for the seeking.

  The road twisted and climbed around the steep shores of the loch. As we climbed higher the mist thinned so that soon we were looking down on curling banks of it as one looks down on to cloud from an aeroplane.

  ‘There’s a wind on the wireless,’ the driver called over his shoulder and at once everyone became more cheerful. Wind would soon drive the mist away.

  The mainland village was squalid and colourless. This may have been because it was within a day’s journey of a large town, or perhaps because it was too long since its inhabitants had forsaken the crofting life in favour of commerce. Whatever the reason I found it a cold and cheerless place to spend a day. It was only when there was a compelling need for some tool or material, the lack of which was holding up a long extended task, that it became in any way endurable for me.

  ‘Have you much shoppin’ to do?’ enquired Janet when we had disembarked from the island ferry.

  ‘Yes, quite a bit, I want some felt and roofing nails for the poultry shed. And some vegetables if I can get them,’ I scanned my list. ‘Oh, and Sarah’s asked me to try to get her a “man-chine for the calf’s nose”,’ I added with a smile. Janet smiled too. To Sarah most things contrived by man were ‘man-chines’. Cars and lorries were acceptably enough ‘man-chines’ but it was more difficult to interpret her description of a broom as a ‘man-chine for cleaning floors’ and a pillar-box as a ‘man-chine for posting letters’. The ‘man-chine’ she had asked me to get for her now was merely a U-shaped flap of wood which fitted into the calf’s nostrils and prevented it from sucking the cow while still allowing it to graze adequately.

  ‘You’d think Yawn could make her one,’ said Janet.

  ‘Yawn says he’s made her dozens and that she’s lost the lot. He thinks if she has to pay for one out of her own money she’ll take better care of it.’

  ‘I doubt she will,’ said Janet.

  There were no more than a half dozen shops in the village, one of which was a tearoom. There was also a small hotel. We visited first a poky general store where they sold meat and bacon, bread and groceries and shoes and drapery all from one littered counter. The varied smells that assailed us were dominated by the odour of old cabbages and softening onions in rolled-down sacks on the floor. Janet was trying on a pair of shoes when old Farquhar came in and announced that he wanted ‘two bread loafs an’ a pound of wee beefies.’ Dourly the assistant handed him two large loaves and then proceeded to weigh out a pound of mince.

  ‘What a glamorous name for mince,’ I murmured to Janet. ‘It makes it sound quite appetising.’ When my turn came I too asked for a pound of ‘wee beefies’. The assistant flicked me a look of disdain.

  ‘Is it mince you’re after wantin’?’ he asked severely.

  I went with Janet to the chemist where she bought half a stone of baking soda to alleviate the indigestion which afflicted all her family and then she came with me to the chandler’s to order my roofing felt and nails. While the assistant was counting out the nails for me old Farquhar came shuffling in.

  ‘Haff you any sea boots?’ he demanded.

  ‘Aye, we have plenty,’ was the crisp reply. Old Farquhar leaned forward, his hand cupped to his ear.

  ‘All that lot there,’ shouted the man, indicating the line of boots in all sizes that stretched across the back of the shop.

  Farquhar gave them a cursory glance. ‘Thank you very much, I will take two,’ he said with lofty indifference.

  We had finished our shopping within the hour and as it was too wet to go for a walk and too early to get lunch we went into the tea room where we drank tea and chatted with the waitress who turned out to be a relative of Janet’s. Following that we ambled up to the hotel, locally known as ‘Kipper Hall’ and ate kippers and turnips and potatoes and declined a pool of rice pudding. Janet, by discreet questioning, discovered that the hotel cook was also a relative of hers and sent the waitress to convey the discovery to her which resulted in an invitation to take tea in the kitchen. We were seated cosily in front of the fire exchanging news and gossip when the door was pushed open and Erchy appeared. He was carrying a large tin of foot-rot ointment.

  ‘Ah, they told me I would find you here,’ he greeted us.

  ‘Come away in,’ invited the cook and poured out another cup of tea.

  Erchy came in and sat down.

  ‘Are you wantin’ us, then?’ Janet asked.

  ‘I was wantin’ Miss Peckwitt,’ he admitted.

  I glanced at him in surprise. ‘Why me?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, you mind I came out to see would I get a look at a boat I was thinkin’ of buyin’?’ Janet and I nodded. ‘Aye, well it seems she’s out in a place a few miles from here an’ I cannot get a car to take me there.’

  ‘Too far to walk?’ I asked.

  ‘Aye, in the time I have before the bus goes away again an’ I’m no so keen to stay the night here.’

  ‘So why were you looking for me?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s this way,’ he began, and went on to tell me that there was a car available but there was no driver. The old man who owned the car had been banned from driving but if I would agree to drive it he would be very pleased to let us have the car for as long as we wished.

  ‘Okay,’ I agreed. ‘So long as we’re back in time for the bus.’

  Janet decided to come with us ‘just for the drive’ and we collected the car from an extremely co-operative garage proprietor. The mist had by how been harried away to the hills by a bullying wind that was ushering thick spongy looking clouds in its place. Before we had gone more than half a mile they had wrung themselves out and the windscreen wipers worked steadily.

  ‘I met a relative of yours when I went for a drink,’ Erchy told Janet.

  ‘Another?’ I laughed. ‘She’s already discovered two this morning.’

  ‘Aye, well this fellow’s newly back from America. He’s been out there near enough to twenty-five years.’

  Janet was agog with interest. ‘It wouldn’t be yon Uisdean who married my cousin’s cousin from Uist?’ She and Erchy delved into genealogies.

  ‘That was him then that went away because of the ghost,’ she told us when identification was completed satisfactorily. ‘I didn’t think he’d ever come back to these parts.’

  ‘Is it him?’ Erchy accepted her statement without surprise. ‘Aye well he hasn’t lost his taste for whisky while he’s been away.’

  ‘Ach, no,’ Janet assured him. ‘He would still draw the same breath.’

  ‘What ghost is this you’re talking about?’ I asked.

  ‘You mind the one. You must have heard of it.’ Janet was emphatic.

  ‘I don’t think I have,’ I said.

  ‘Well, this fellow, this sort of cousin of mine was walkin’ home one night when he met a strange woman. He greeted h
er with a “Ciamar a Tha” just the same as he would anyone but as soon as he’s spoken this woman turns and walks alongside him and tells him that he’s the first person to have spoken to her for many years. He knew fine she was a ghost then an’ tried to hurry away but she would follow him. She told him she had not died by her own hand as people thought but that she had been murdered. She named her killer and pleaded with the man to go to the authorities and have the murderer brought to justice. He had to say he would, just to get rid of her but he didn’t do any more about it. The next time he was that way she pursued him again, pleadin’ an’ pleadin’. He still didn’t do anythin’ about it but she upset him so much he packed up an’ went to America,’

  ‘I’ve never heard that story before,’ I told her.

  ‘Indeed?’ Janet’s voice was puzzled. ‘It’s well known in these parts.’ The three of us became deep in thought for a few minutes and then Janet spoke again. ‘I wonder if it’s just a lot of nonsense?’

  ‘What, the story or the ghost?’ I asked.

  ‘No, indeed.’ Janet sounded prickly. ‘The man wouldn’t have told a lie. No, I was thinkin’ about the belief we have hereabouts that a ghost can’t cross water. That’s why he went to America, you see. But I’d like to know if it’s true or not. It’s a pity Erchy didn’t know who it was an’ then he could have asked him.’

  Erchy said, ‘Aye, well it’s too late now. He was catchin’ the train back to Glasgow an’ he’s away back on his travels by the weekend.’

  We drove on in silence. ‘What a nice man that garage proprietor seems to be,’ I said.

  ‘Aye,’ Erchy admitted shortly.

  ‘He didn’t seem to be able to do enough for us,’ added Janet.

  ‘Aye.’

  It was unlike Erchy to be so terse but Janet and I knew that questions would bring no information. We waited patiently.

  ‘You mind that net I sold about three years back?’ Erchy asked Janet at last.

  ‘I mind that fine. It wasn’t a net just, was it?’