A Croft in the Hills (7 page)

The stacks became so much a part of the landscape that we were quite sorry to see the arrival of the threshing-mill and to have to undertake the slow dismantling of them. However, there was
compensation in watching the plump, burnished grain pouring out of the hoppers into the sacks and to note that there was an astonishing amount of first-grade stuff among it. We would take a sample
in a grimy palm and gloat over it, like a miser with his gold.

Our corn had been sown in a snow-storm and it was to see another before it was finally gathered in. When the job was three-quarters done the snow began to fall in soft, feathery flakes. It was
not wetting stuff and did not deter the squad. But next day, when Billy came to help us finish off the straw-stack, it was blowing a blizzard and most of the chaff, which I had looked forward to
gathering for the deep-litter house, was soaked. However, the grain was got safely under cover and Jim and Billy battled away with the stack of straw and secured it with weighted ropes. Next day,
the seed-merchant’s lorry came to collect the surplus grain and we received a substantial cheque.

Billy worked with us for several days, clearing up the aftermath of the threshing, and we decided to get him to stay on for a bit at a weekly wage. We had the potatoes to riddle and the turnips
to lift and we foresaw winter catching up with us before this work was done, if we had no help. A bothy was fitted up for Billy in the bungalow and he had food with us in the house.

We borrowed a mechanical riddle and sorted the potatoes into ware, seed and chat. We found we had several tons surplus to our own needs, which we sold at once rather than risk having them
deteriorate in the pit.

We sold the sheep and the stot stirks, keeping the two heifer stirks, one black and one blue-grey, which had improved sufficiently to warrant retaining, and bought thirty-five magnificent
black-faced ewes and a ram, the sort of beasts any sheep-man would be proud to own.

Finlay, from up the hill, had given us a collie pup, Bess, and the place began to echo with shouts and whistling, as we started to train her to the shepherding. She was so anxious for work that
she would be for ever rounding up whatever came in sight—hen, pullet, duck, cow, or anything else.

We were well into winter by the time the last of the turnips was lifted and pitted. The pullets were snug in their deep-litter house, the cow and the heifers were warmly bedded in straw, Charlie
was crunching oats in his stable. With our first harvest secured, we could face the coming months with a reasonable measure of confidence.

CHAPTER VI

CEILIDHS

T
WO
days after Christmas, the day of the little children’s party we had planned, the ram died. He had been ailing for a week or so and we had done
our best in the way of dosing, but to no purpose. As I looked up from my sandwich-cutting, at the kitchen window, I saw Billy making his way slowly up through the rushes in the lower field,
carrying the bedraggled hulk of the once majestic creature on his shoulders. It was a sad moment, but luckily we hadn’t time to brood. Jim and Billy performed the brief funeral rites, while I
brought out the jellies and cream.

Eight youngsters from the three neighbouring crofts arrived at dusk, their faces gleaming with cleanliness and anticipation, and we had a very lively party indeed, Billy joining in with
surprising gusto. The children taught us their own enchanting singing games, which have since become our favourites—‘The wind and the wind and the wind blows high’ and ‘We
are all maidens’ and ‘In and out the dusty bluebells’ and many others with sweet, nostalgic cadences. Party-making is easy when you have unlimited quantities of eggs and cream,
one of the little self-sown conifers (which need thinning, anyway) for a tree and a handful of unspoilt youngsters, eager for enjoyment. Each year we have a small gathering of children in the house
at Christmas. Soon after Hallowe’en we start planning it and long after it’s over it’s still a subject of chuckling reminiscence.

The smallest social occasion has a savour to it here. Some neighbours we may only see twice, or at most three times, in a year. They live, perhaps, only a mile or so away, but in the summer
they’re busy with their crops and in the winter snow or storm may prevent them venturing far at night. So, when we do meet, it’s a small celebration in itself. First comes the firm
handshake, as we congratulate each other tacitly on the fact that we are still in the land of the living. Then come the comments on the state of the weather and on the condition of crops and
beasts, leading to the climax of the interview—the exchanging of any real tit-bits of news, the spicier the better! Finally, over a cup of tea, or a dram, if it is a really special occasion,
a mellow, reminiscent mood settles on the company. This is when Jim and I hold our breath and wait for the old stories to come out for an airing in the fireside glow. We hear of an old bachelor who
lived in the remains of a once-model croft house and would tether his cow to the foot of his bed to keep her from straying at night: of Mary, who had the second sight, and could see, on a winter
evening’s walk, the funeral procession of those who were soon to die: of the old widow who had the evil eye and could bring about the death of a favourite beast, or wish ill-luck on a whole
family. These were all men and women who had lived hard lives, had been a law unto themselves and had left their legend lurking among the tumbled stones which had been home to them.

We never pass one of these pathetic ruins but we visualise the children scampering about the doorways. Many of them died young, as the headstones in the burial ground testify, but most of those
who survived left their mark in other parts, in Canada or New Zealand. The depression in agriculture after the First World War was the immediate cause of many of these upland holdings being
abandoned, but probably it would have come about in any case. With the improvement in communications, the standard of life was changing: the community was no longer isolated. The young people could
get to town at the cost of a two-mile walk to the bus, instead of having to wait for the odd occasion, when they would go on foot, or on the steamer on Loch Ness. Once in town they would fall under
the spell of the shop-window. A small holding could not stand the strain of providing cash for bought commodities. When the old diet of milk, meal, potatoes, eggs and a barrel of salt herring,
carted from the west, was no longer considered adequate, holdings had to be enlarged or other means of subsistence found. Whether the children are healthier now, with the addition of tea and
wrapped bread and sweetstuff to their menu, is perhaps a moot point. Certainly, preventive and remedial health measures save them from the epidemics which carried off many youngsters in the old
days. These epidemics, when they did occur, hit them exceptionally hard, reared, as they were, in isolation from germs, and so lacking natural immunity. Labour-saving devices do spare the women,
and the men, a lot of killing drudgery. But how far the real quality of human health and happiness has been improved would be difficult to say. To look at the serene faces and hardy frames of some
of the older generation is to make one doubtful of using the word ‘improve’ at all. One neighbour it is always a special delight to meet is a grandmother of close on eighty who lives,
now, alone in her croft house. She has reared a large family and has known every kind of trouble and grief. Yet there is always a smile on her face, to challenge the wrinkles; and she thinks
nothing of walking miles, straight across country, fording burns and climbing fences, to visit relatives of a younger generation who may be sick.

Finlay, who guided us in all our affairs with sheep, on hearing that the ram had died, immediately gave us one of his on loan till the end of the tupping season. So our fear that some of the
ewes might not bear lambs was allayed.

The year came to an end with a storm of alarming fury. The scullery window was blown right out. One of the henhouses (mercifully devoid of hens) was scattered in bits across the field. But,
miraculously, the straw-stack stood intact: we blessed the day we had battened it down with weighted ropes. After battling with the elements in the kitchen, doing my indoor chores in gum-boots and
balaclava, I developed a heavy cold and we spent our Hogmanay dozing over a huge fire, myself well drugged with aspirin.

New Year started auspiciously for me, with Jim and Helen bringing me tea and toast to bed, and immediately all sneezing and snuffling were at an end! In the afternoon we walked out across the
moor in the still, glittering cold and came home to a dinner of roast duck.

Then the ceilidhs began. Since the previous Hogmanay our neighbours had become friends and a good year’s work had established a firm bond among us. We knew our way about. To us there is no
place on earth so comforting as a croft kitchen on a winter night. As you approach the glow of the lighted window, the smell of the peat-reek comes at you in a waft of welcome, pungent and homely.
On reaching the threshold you brush the snow from your boots with the small besom provided for the purpose. Then the door opens and you’re bidden, with an outstretched hand, to ‘come
away in’. Inside, the flames are licking round the up-ended peats, there’s the hiss of the pressure lamp and the ticking of a huge, old clock. The pattern is the same everywhere. It
hardly varies, yet it never fails to delight. We’re a little company gathered in sheltering walls that huddle against the vastness of the night and of the cold. We’re supremely glad to
have warmth and calm and relaxation.

The men stretch their legs and slowly stuff their pipes. The women move quietly about, placing the kettle, the tea-caddy, the cups in strategic positions. The children sit, bright-eyed, on the
settle, hoping bed-time will be overlooked: at New Year, it usually is. The kettle is not brought to the boil till the men have had their dram, the women their glass of port and the children their
fruit wine, to wash down the raisin-cake and shortbread. Tongues are loosened at this time of year and throats well moistened. You can almost forget the wireless in the corner by the window, the
weekly paper stuffed under the chair cushions, and expect the ceilidh to resume its old character. You almost wait for the song and the story to come floating out of the shadowy corners of the
room, but of course they don’t. The stories are reminiscences, fascinating in themselves and never wearisome, however often they are repeated. They’re founded on fact and they
haven’t the wild sweep and gusto of the old, imagined tales. The song, too, has died. There is no longer even the cheerful scrape of a fiddle, though here and there a young lad will produce a
tune from an accordion ‘box’.

We spent many evenings at neighbouring firesides that New Year. Helen enjoyed them as much as we did and was indulged with sweets and oranges, and walked home across the moor at midnight without
a stumble, scorning to be carried.

The days were not arduous, for there was little we could do but feed the horse, the cattle and the hens, look over the sheep and split logs for the fire. Jim and Billy did, however, get ahead
with the fencing, whenever the weather allowed, and made several gates. I tackled the accumulation of mending and took advantage of the well-banked state of the fire to do some large bakings.

On the worst days, when all outdoor work was at a standstill and it was too cold even to work in the barn for more than an hour or two together, we all turned our attention to improving the
living arrangements in the house. All through the previous year we had used only the ground-floor rooms, for warmth in the winter and for convenience in the summer.

Now, however, we began to explore the possibilities of the upper regions. I scrubbed out the two bedrooms and the men shouldered the beds and furniture up the narrow stairway. The walls and
paintwork were shabby in the extreme, but decorating would have to wait until the better weather came. The rooms were clean and we installed an oil-stove in each, which we would light an hour or so
before bed-time each night.

Then we made the spare downstairs room into a second sitting-room, where we could relax, or so we hoped! The living-room had a felt-and-linoleum covering over the stone and we could go in there
gum-booted, dogs at our heels, without fear of doing damage. The new sitting-room we planned as a sort of inner refuge, snugly carpeted, its walls lined with the books and pictures we had at last
extricated from the boxes in the cupboard. Outdoor footgear and dogs were to be strictly prohibited. We foresaw long Sunday afternoons spent in the comfort of this oasis, but actually it
didn’t turn out that way. Sunday afternoons were usually spent attending to lambing ewes, chasing cattle out of the crops or catching up on domestic work, and the room itself had often to be
converted into sleeping quarters for a benighted contractor. But still, we did enjoy brief moments in it and the knowledge that it was there was a satisfaction in itself. We began to feel we had
got past the stage of the initial assault and were beginning to dig in for the campaign.