Twelve Great Black Cats

by Sorche Nic Leodhas

  When Tam awoke in the morning he could tell as soon as he opened his eyes that the day was already well begun. A pale yellow sunlight came creeping through the windows, as if meekly apologizing for the havoc of the storm during the night. One look at his watch told him that it was past nine o’clock, and he wondered for a moment why his landlady had not brought up his breakfast to him long ago. She was punctual as a rule, arriving on the stroke of half past seven. Surely she would have waked him up, if she had come. Then he remembered that he had not informed her of his return. She would be thinking he was still on his way home, if not already there.

  It did not matter, after all. He would dress and go downstairs and ask her to give him a cup of tea and something to go with it for his breakfast. He knew she’d not be minding it at all. He could have gone into the town for his breakfast, of course, but he did not like to leave the house lest Rab should come while he was gone.

  As he came down the last steps into the hallway he saw the front door standing open. He heard a babble of voices talking all at once so that a body could not make out a word they said. Above the clatter a woman’s voice rose, lamenting like the voice of a Hebridian keen. His landlady stood in the midst of a small group of people, of whom Tam recognized the postman, the milkboy, the constable, Mrs. McNeil the neighbor next door, and half a dozen other persons who lived close by. They were all clustered together upon the steps and at the open door.

  Tam stopped on the landing to listen, trying to make out what the folk were so excited about. The first thing he was able to make out was his landlady’s saying, “Och, and such a lovely dear lad he was. I’d never find a finer—not if I looked for a year.”

  “That ye’d not, madam,” said the constable. “He always had a cheery smile and a pleasant word when he passed by.”

  “Aye, so he had,” said a neighbor. “He’ll be sorely missed, the fine young gentleman.”

  Tam was intrigued. He wondered what calamity had befallen the unknown young man, and who he was, anyway, to be raising such a ruckus among the folk. He hurried out the front door and onto the top of the front steps to join the group and find out what their clatter was all about.

  Tam’s landlady, wiping a tear from her cheek, looked up and spied Tam at the top of the steps. He expected her usual smile and greeting, but instead she merely pointed a shaking finger at him and screamed. Every head turned. Postman, milkboy, constable, landlady, and all the neighbors stared in shocked silence at Tam.

  “What’s amiss?” asked the bewildered Tam.

  Then suddenly they were all about him, clutching at him and crying, “You’re not dead?” Each of them grabbed at Tam’s arms, legs, shoulders, face, to see if he was real.

  “Dead?” said Tam. “I am not, then. Why would you be thinking I was dead?”

  “Have ye not heard the news, man?” asked the postman.

  “News? What news?” asked Tam.

  So the constable told him: “The train—the Tay Bridge Train! In the great windstorm last night, the middle span blew out, wi’ the train just passing over it—and down it tumbled, train and people and all, into the Tay below.”

  The landlady added, “All those poor folk on the train, drowned dead. And me thinking you were on it, too, it being the train you said you’d be taking.” She wiped another tear from her eye, just at the thought.

  “And so I would have done,” Tam explained. “But I ran into a friend in the town. It was he that persuaded me to wait over until today.”

  “It was the Lord’s mercy, and a miracle, that’s what it was,” concluded the landlady.

  It was the way of life, they said. So many taken, and one spared. They went on about it for a long time.

  Needless to say, Tam’s spirits were subdued at the thought of such a narrow escape. Only to think—if he’d not met Rab! He’d have gone along to the station, taken the train, and gone into the Tay with the other poor souls who drowned there. And where was Rab?

  Tam waited all day. Rab did not come. Toward evening he walked down the hill, inquired at hotels and other likely places where Rab might be, but he found no trace of his friend.

  The next day, when Rab had still not come, Tam made up his mind that he must have misunderstood his friend. He decided to waste no more of his holiday with waiting, so he set out again on his journey home for Hogmanay. He had a funny feeling that Rab had gone on without him and would be at home when he got there.

  Because of the broken bridge, Tam had to go the long way around. Folk were saying it would never be mended. By ferry, by branch line, and by coach, he finally came home on the last day of the year.

  Tam’s whole family was overjoyed at his arrival. They really had not expected him, since news of the hurricane had already reached them. Knowing of the disaster of the great Tay Bridge, they had felt sure he would not attempt the journey.

  After the usual warm family greetings all around, Tam asked them how Rab was. He had looked ill when last Tam had seen him, he told them.

  “Aye,” said Tam’s mother. “The lad had a bad spell o’t. He’s been long ill, but is mending now. A look at you, Tam, would make him feel all the better, I’m sure.”

  “So he came home safe, did he?” Tam said. “Och, I owe him my life, that I do! Had it not been that I met up with him on the street on my way to the station, I myself would have been on the Tay Bridge Train, and lost with all the rest. It was Rab that made me hold over till the next day.”

  “You met Rab?” asked Tam’s father sharply. “When was this?”

  “When was it?” Tam told him. “When would it be but the night of the great windstorm? December 27th, it was. Och, the wind was rising already when we met. ’Twas all a body could do to keep his footing climbing back up the hill to my lodgings.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you this, Tam,” answered his father. “You did not meet Rab that night.”

  “I did, indeed. I stood for fifteen or twenty minutes and talked with Rab, while he argued that I must go back and wait until the mom. I thought he meant to travel back with me. And then I waited, but he never came.”

  Said his mother, “Tam, lad, ye couldna have talked to Rab. He’s been lying in his bed for the past fortnight.”

  “He got out of it, then,” Tam insisted. “For I myself saw him. Go ask his folk if he was not away.”

  “I do not need to,” said his father. “That night was one I’ll not forget. Along about sundown Rab’s mother came running to us for help. The lad was bound he’d get up from his bed. Out of his mind with fever, he was, and calling out ‘Tam! Tam!’ It took me and his father and the cowman to hold him down in his bed, and when he gave up of a sudden, he lay there as white and spent as if he were dead. We did not leave his side until morn, and then we sent for the doctor. But he was only sleeping after all.”

  Tam was perplexed at this tale. “Well, then, who was it I met then, if not Rab?” he wanted to know.

  Tam’s grandmother, who had so far not said a word, spoke up tartly. “What would it be but his fetch?”

  “Havers!” exclaimed the father. “Auld wives’ tales and superstitions!”

  The grandmother spoke quietly now, but firmly. “Aye, ’twas the lad’s fetch—his living spirit. Rab got the warning that Tam was in danger, and when he could not go himself with the illness on him, and himself held down in his bed, he sent his fetch to hold Tam back from taking the train.”

  “I believe you,” Tam said. “For if it was not Rab, it must have been as you say. Fetch or spirit, whatever it was, it had Rab’s look about it, and it had Rab’s voice, and it kept me from taking the Tay Bridge Train.”

  Tam’s father scoffed and blustered, but it was in Tam’s mind that he believed in it as much as Tam’s grandmother, and Tam’s mother and Tam himself did, only he wasn’t going to tell them that he did.

  As for Rab, all that he remembered was that he had been taken with a terrible fear that some evil hung over Tam’s head, and he had fought to go and warn his friend. When they he
ld him down he thought he fell asleep and dreamed that he went and found Tam and put him out of danger. When Rab woke in the morning the fear had left him, and his mind was at rest. He was sure then that Tam was safe.

  “I would not know, Tam,” said Rab. “But your grandmother could well be right. Maybe my spirit left me and went to warn you, and if so, it must have been my fetch, for, to be sure, it was not my ghost, for I’m not dead.”

  “Nor I!” Tam said. “Thanks to you.”

  It was the talk of the countryside for a very long time, and old folk to this day still talk sometimes about the fetch of Rab MacDonald that went to stop his friend Tam on the night of the great windstorm and made him miss the Tay Bridge Train.

  The Lass and Her Good Stout

  Blackthorn Stick

  IN a fishing village on the east coast of Scotland, up above Aberdeen, there dwelt a fishing lad and a bonnie lass that loved each other well. Both of them had been born in the same village and they had been sweethearts ever since they were bairns at school together, and now that they were grown they planned to be married after the herring fishing was over and the catch sold.

  But the plans of the two young lovers went awry, for one day when the lad was out in his boat with the fishing fleet a great wind came tearing down upon them from the north, working terrible destruction upon the fishing boats. The storm came up so suddenly and the wind and the waves were so high that there was little the fishermen could do to help themselves. Many a good boat capsized that day to sink into the depths of the sea, and among them was the boat of the fishing lad who loved the bonnie lass. He and his crew were swept off into the sea, and it was only with great difficulty that they were saved by those who had the luck to weather the storm. The fleet limped back to port when the storm was over, but great was the grief in the village, for there were many men who had sailed out at dawn who would never come home again.

  They brought the lad home to his mother, half drowned and nearly out of his head with what he’d been through. His mother and his dear lass tended him by turns, and by the end of a fortnight he was on the mend. But if his body was growing stronger his heart was like to break, and how could it be otherwise? A man without a boat of his own would not be earning enough to care for a wife and family. His boat was lost and, without it, he and his lass could not be wed.

  “Hush, now,” his mother told him. “The Lord will provide. Marry your lass and move in here with your father and me. We’ll make do.”

  But the lad would not put such a burden on his father.

  The lass smiled at him fondly. “I’m lucky to have you alive,” said she. “Think of the men who lost their lives that day. We must just wait a while longer until we can be wed.”

  But the lad would take no comfort from what she said.

  The lass was a great one for thinking things over, and she turned their troubles over and over in her mind. One day she came to the lad with a plan. “You sign up with the crew of one of the fishing boats,” she told him, “and save what you can. I’ll go and find myself a place as a serving lass at one of the crofts, and when I bring my wages back after my time is up, maybe we’ll have enough between us to make a start.”

  He did not care for the notion of her going away but he had no better answer to their problem to offer. So the lass packed her clothes in a bundle and started off to seek work. The lad walked along with her until they came to the highroad, and there he gave her a good stout blackthorn stick that he’d been carrying under his arm.

  “’Tis not much of a gift to be giving a lass,” he said. “But it will help you on your way. It’s a fine strong stick to lean on, just like yourself.”

  “Then they parted, and he went back to take his place in the crew of another man’s boat, and she went down the highroad that led her away from her home.

  She had no luck that first day, for the hiring season was over and the folk at the crofts where she sought a master to hire her were well-suited with the maids they’d got at the hiring fairs. But she went on until she found a shepherd’s empty hut at the gloaming, and there she sheltered for the night.

  The lass rose with the birds at dawn and broke her fast upon some of the food she had brought along with her in her bundle, and she slaked her thirst in a nearby burn. She washed her face and hands there, too, and tidied her hair, and picking up her bundle and her good stout blackthorn stick she stepped out on her way again, as fresh and bright as the morn itself.

  She had no better luck this day than she had had the day before. But she was not disheartened. If she kept on trying she was sure to find a place somewhere, and she had never been one to give up too soon. So the lass went on. Late in the afternoon she came to a very large croft with good fields about it. There were cows to be milked in the barnyard, and hens and geese as well as a big flock of sheep in the brae beyond the fields. The house itself was a big one, much grander than any the lass had ever seen. An extra pair of hands might come in handy in a place the size of that, she thought. So she turned aside from the road and walked up the lane that led to the house.

  Now as it happened the farmer at the croft had died that selfsame day. An old man, he’d been, who’d lived his time out and made money hand over hand, through all his years. His oldest son and his wife and all his other sons and daughters lived with him on the croft, so he had never had need of hiring other help. The work was divided among all of them, and it must be admitted that the old man did his share. The croft prospered and they all had what they needed of food and clothing, and were comfortable enough. The trouble was that the old man did all the buying and selling himself, and in all the years of their lives not one of them had ever seen so much as a penny of the old man’s gold. They knew he brought money into the house, for droves of sheep and herds of cattle and great loads of farm stuff had been sold through the years, but what he had done with the money paid to him for them not a soul among his family could guess.

  It was just a week before that the old man had taken to his bed and told them he’d a mind to die, and in the days since then his sons and daughters had all but torn the house to pieces seeking without success for the gold he had hidden away. When they had seen that morning that he would not last the day, they had filled the final hours of his life trying with all their might to persuade him to tell where he had hidden his hoard. But he only grinned at them and refused to tell them anything at all.

  Now there was an old belief among the folk in those parts that if a stranger watched beside a dead person, leaving the door ajar, the dead man would rise from his bed in the middle of the night and answer any question he had been asked while he was lying there. When they saw the lass walking up the lane toward the house, the oldest son said to his wife, “Goodwife, here comes a stranger.”

  “Aye,” said his wife. “A stranger. So it is.” Then they looked at each other knowingly, and at the old man’s other sons and his daughters.

  “Aye—a stranger,” they said. “So it is.” And without saying more they decided to induce the lass to watch that night beside the dead man.

  Now the lass had never heard about this old belief. Folk in her own village knew naught about it or she’d have learned it long before. So she had no notion of what the folk at the croft were planning when she came up the lane to the house and knocked at the door.

  “Who’s there?” asked the oldest son, as he opened the door.

  “A good serving maid seeking a place,” answered the lass.

  “Och,” said the oldest son. “You’ve come to a house of grief, for our father died this morning, and all of us are worn out with caring for him, for he’s been ill for a week.” Then the son asked her a few questions, and by her answers he soon knew that she had heard naught of the old belief. So he said, “Well, we’re in no need of a serving maid for the croft, but would be willing to hire you to sit and watch by the dead man, so that we may catch a bit of sleep. I’ll give you a piece of gold and a piece of silver for the watching tonight.”

  A piece
of gold and a piece of silver was better than nothing, thought the lass, though she had no idea that the dead man’s son planned to pay her out of the gold and silver that the dead man had hidden, and which he, the son, could not put his hands on without her. She liked the thought of having a roof over her head, too, even if it did mean sitting up all night with a dead body. So she said she would do it, and they took her into the house. They set her supper before her, and when she had eaten they took her into the front room where the dead man lay. There was a fire burning in the grate and a comfortable chair beside it, facing toward the dead man.

  “We’ll just be going to bed early,” they told the lass, “being that tired out with nursing our poor father here.” So they made ready to leave her, but first the oldest son and his wife and the other sons and daughters went over to the dead man, one by one, and whispered something as they bent over him. The lass could not hear the words but she took no interest in what they said.

  “Och, the poor things are saying their prayers,” she said to herself.

  But what they were saying to the dead man was, “Father, where did you lay away your gold?”

  Then they all went up the stairs, but the oldest son, before he followed after them, slipped over behind the lass and set the outside door ajar.

  The lass set her bundle down beside her, with her good stout blackthorn stick that her lover gave her resting against her knee for company.

  The hours went by and she sat on, and now and then she found her head nodding, but she did not fall asleep. When midnight came she got up to mend the fire and that was when she heard a rustle behind her. She looked around and there was the dead man propping himself up on one elbow and giving her a horrible grin.