Tales from the Tent (3 page)

‘Hello, lassie, I’m looking for my mate, Portsoy Peter. I was told he was hitching his yoke with Charlie Riley.’

I sat up to say he’d found the right place, but Portsoy wasn’t in. ‘I think he’s at Perth and will be back about tea-time,’ I told the stranger, then continued:
‘I know that because he asked Mammy what was for tea, and when she telt him tattie soup and stovies he said there was no way he’d miss out on such a cracking meal.’

The big man asked politely if he could wait at our fire. ‘I’ve come a fair distance tae see my old mate, it would be daft tae go away without a blether.’

It was nearing three in the afternoon so I enquired if this visitor fancied a cuppy?

‘Only if I can have a share o’ yer scone,’ he mused.

‘I’ll get you another one, Mammy’s made a wayn o’ them. What’s yer name by the way?’

‘Mac, I’m simply called Mac.’

‘What else, surely there’s more to your self than three letters?’

‘Well, you can put a lot into those three wee letters, lassie.’ He smiled as he settled himself down onto the warm grass and lay beside me. Shielding his eyes from the sun’s
glare with his bunnet, then inserting a blade of grass between a fine mouth of shiny white teeth he told me how he came to be.

It was 1918 and old Widow Macgregor had just made safe her tent fire for the night. All of a sudden the flap door was wrenched back and a young lassie, still with the freckles on her face and
the red on her cheeks, thrust a new born baby boy into the hands of the startled elderly woman. ‘I canna keep it,’ she cried, ‘I dinna ken how tae.’ Those words were the
youngster’s parting call before she planted a soft kiss on the infant’s brow and was gone into the dark night. The old woman had seen many bairns into the world, so she knew how to
twine-tie the cord and wash its tiny frame. What worried her more was her awareness that it had not long left the womb, because it takes no longer for a new human to die than it does for a
featherless chick deserted in the nest. Without a minute wasted, she wrapped the bairn in a shawl and huddled off into the night toward the tent of Marion Macdonald. She had a few wee ones. The
widow had heard them playing in the birch woods and knew they lived less than a mile away up toward Tulimet. The tents were in darkness as she arrived by the moonlight’s guidance.

Without waiting for permission, she forced her old frame in through the door of the Macdonalds’ tent. ‘A stupid wee lassie has had herself a baby, Mrs Macdonald—have ye the
breast milk for it? Look, the poor wee thing hasn’t even tasted a drop yet, I fear death is in the waiting for it if it doesn’t see any sustenance.’

‘Oh dear, I’m fair sorry for the mite, but my youngest is over the year and doesn’t need milk. Mine dried up last month. But the lassie Macpherson might be able to help, did
she not bury a stiff-born infant just the other day?’

The old woman, saddled with her precious burden, said she’d heard of the sad case, but were the Macphersons not over seven miles away? ‘The baby would never survive that
distance,’ she said, biting into her knuckles in desperation.

‘Not if my Jamie runs with him’, answered Marion. Her Jamie was thirteen and ‘could run with the Monarch’, she proudly told the old woman. Marion speedily ripped out
sheep’s wool she’d sown into her children’s mattress and began covering the wee boy’s head and vulnerable back. Then she tied pieces of muslin all round his tiny frame,
leaving a small hole for air at his mouth. As if packing a very valuable piece of china she placed the baby into a hessian sack and tied it to Jamie’s back. To emphasise the importance of his
task she placed two strong hands onto his young shoulders and said, ‘for God’s sake, laddie, go like the wind, for this wee bundle hasn’t an hour of life left in him.’

Jamie took off into the night as sure-footed as the deer, and in no time was holding out the tiny parcel to the young mother in the throes of bereavement.

Soon the wee baby boy was suckling like mad, a life saved by the expertise of the travelling people. Sad to say, though, his adopted mother fell ill with fever, and in his eleventh month her
life was cut short. Her sad husband, unable to cope, begged a farmer and his wife to take the bonny healthy boy. Which they did and brought him up as their own.

‘And here I am, lassie, lying here on the grass beside you this very afternoon.’ Mac finished his tale, turned onto his stomach and went to sleep.

I was intrigued, what a marvellous story. I had to hear more about my new friend.

‘You still haven’t told me why you’re called Mac.’ I awakened him with a prod into his ribs.

‘Then you haven’t been listening, lassie,’ he said, rolling onto his side.

‘I heard every word you said, it was fascinating.’

He then reminded me: the first old woman’s name was Macgregor, the second was Macdonald, the third... Macpherson.

‘Oh, I can see it now, their names all began with “Mac”.’

‘You’ve got it!’

‘But why didn’t you take the farm-folks’ name—surely they gave you theirs?’

‘I did! They were called—Macmillan!’

I laughed, so did he, then we shared another cup of tea and scone.

I liked this man, I felt a kindred spirit, and wanted to know more about his fascinating life. But soon the family would be home from the berries. I had a fire to kindle, tatties to peel and a
kettle to boil.

The night settled itself around the campfire, which began to be crowded with lads and lassies whirling up a ceilidh. Some sang the old ballads, while others played an instrument. We were graced
with a blaw from Mammy on her mouthie before she gave everyone a toe-tapper on her Jew’s harp. She could fair make that wee piece of metal curl and twang between her lips, could my Mam! I
told a ghost story or two, which saw old biddies pull collars tighter round their necks. Such were the horrors that fell wordily from my mouth, even I found it hard to believe they were ‘made
up tales’ out of my head of many characters. At last Mammy scolded me for frightening the bairns, who’d scurried away to their beds. A tall lad from up north sang several Jacobite
songs, which went down very well with his captive audience. But, strange to say, this particular choice of song didn’t stir a single clap from my pal Mac. Later, when everyone had bedded down
for the night, I asked him if he had had a ‘whine’ with the singer.

‘Not at all, lass, it was those Bonnie Prince Charlie stories that I canna feel much for,’ he answered.

‘I love to hear them’, I told him. ‘It makes me feel all fuzzy inside to think he might have been our last king.’ I then proudly added, ‘what about our ancestors
who gave their lives and their lands for freedom’s sword?’

‘Huh, what rubbish, that word freedom is as Scottish as haggis!’

I looked on in bewilderment while he ranted on about how, after Culloden, all our hardy beef was scoured out of the land and we were forced to live off mutton because that was all there was. If
our English neighbours hadn’t felt pity on our starving bairns and showed us how to survive the winters by eating sheep offal in its stomach, then a hell of a lot of us would have perished.
‘Why do you think Robert Burns wrote a poem to the haggis? Because it fed the poor, that’s why!’

Those words left my imagination in overdrive, but I hadn’t enough insight to understand what they meant, so I prodded Mac to say some more. But he would go no further and told me to find
out for myself.

He fell silent for a while before going into Portsoy’s caravan (who, by the way, hadn’t arrived back from Perth). When inside he called to me through the open door, ‘Jessie, do
you want to hear another side to that historical episode of yon Stuart?’

Now, anyone who knows me would swear to walk forever backwards if I didn’t want to hear stories about my Scotland, fictitious or otherwise. So in no time I was sitting with knees under my
chin, watching and waiting as Mac opened an old tattered suitcase he’d earlier slipped under Portsoy’s bed, and carefully removed a single jacket, a pair of trousers and three or four
odd socks, and put them on the caravan floor. Concealed at the bottom of the case he lifted out an old bulky journal that had seen better days, and laid it gently down. ‘This, lassie, is
tales told to me over the years by many, many traveller folks. You see, because of my beginnings I always felt drawn to the tent folks. You could say I was magnetically pulled into their midst by
an invisible force outwith my control. The ancient stories fascinated me, and thanks to my adopted parents I was schooled in reading and writing. Now, I dare say many of the tellers were reluctant
to see the spoken word go on paper, but it’s amazing what a wee dram and a few fags could do. However there were a damn sight more that would not be bought for love nor money. I had a fierce
arm chuck me into a grimy puddle many a time by those who believed in staying loyal and forbidding the writing down of the sacred tales. So a lot of the time I had to rely on memory. This story,
though, I did have the blessing of the teller to put through the pen. Do you want to hear it?’

‘Without a doubt.’

‘Then, Jess, listen and do it well, for there’s many who would spit in your eye for its hearing. I do hope you don’t suffer the same fate as those first poor souls who dared
tell the story of—

4

THE SEVERED LINE

W
ho among us in Scotland has not heard of ‘The Young Pretender’, son of James Edward the ‘Old Pretender’, the rightful
Stuart King of Scotland? No doubt very few. It brings the musician out in all of us, doesn’t it, to hear the stirring battle call of ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ himself, and the
Jacobite rising of the ’45. How bold and daring were the exploits of his followers; lengthy novels depict his brave attempt to bring the Stuarts back their kingdom of Scotland, their
birthright throne.

But! What if I told you a different tale, with twists and turns, and evil lies, hmm?

Come with me now to Rome where a lady lies, writhing and screaming in the last throes of her pain-wracked labour. Nursemaids, sweating and scurrying to and fro with hot water and swathings of
cooled cloths, await the arrival of the King’s new heir.

Outside, a fierce thunderstorm adds its tension to a nerve-stretched night. It is four a.m., the darkest hour; the lady pushes for the last time and a new-born scream cuts through the waiting
ears of a small army of servants and doctors. The heir apparent has arrived. The clan chiefs, far off in tiny Scotland, will breathe hope again.

The new mother opens her exhausted eyes, and for a moment she sees on the face of her doctor a frightened look. He hands the baby over to a trembling nurse, who swiftly wipes its tiny frame
before laying it down beside its mother, who pretends to be asleep. While her nurses make the place ready for his Majesty’s arrival the lady pulls back the shawl to see she has... a beautiful
daughter! The last thing she remembers before exhaustion sweeps over her is an enormous crack of lighting that lights up the entire room, but strangely leaves her infant clouded by a dark
shadow.

When at last her eyes opened again it was her dear husband holding both her hand and the tiny fingers of their new–SON. The lady said nothing because she knew the chiefs would not accept a
female child. She kept silent and went along with the lie that she had given birth to a healthy son, but she had to know if her natural child was alive or not. When her health returned she forced
her handmaiden to tell the truth.

‘It was not to be disclosed to another living soul, Ma’am, but in the same hour your child was born a scullery maid brought forth an illegitimate son. It was his Majesty’s
orders that the babies be switched.’

‘Where is the kitchen lass, and does she still have my daughter?’ asked the lady, shaking with emotion.

‘Ma’am, she has been given a small dowry and, oh, please Ma’am, forgive me for telling you this, but she’s been sent to Scotland!’ The maid fell at the knees of her
mistress and sobbed.

The Lady gently lifted her servant’s head and said, ‘Please tell me she has the child.’

‘Yes, Ma’am, the baby is with her.’

Those were blessed words to her ears. She knew that her baby was lost to her forever, but at least a royal Stuart would grow, and, pray God, survive, within her rightful home on Scottish
soil.

The scullery maid called her forced child Charlotte, and swore with every God-given breath to disclose to the lass, when the time was right, who she really was.

Within no time of their arrival in Scotland, in a part of Edinburgh, the scullery maid found a house of employment. Strangely, the wealthy family with whom she had settled took her child as
well. Perhaps it was the distinctive blue of her eyes or maybe it was the bright red hair, one cannot say, but before long she was accepted as one of the family.

Within this family were three children who were privately tutored in the highest of education, music and the arts. When old enough, Charlotte joined them in their classroom and soon stood out as
a bright and highly intelligent student.

Soon it was time! One night the woman whom she thought of as Mother sat young Charlotte, now eighteen, down and revealed the awful truth.