The Judas Bull
by Alasdair McPherson
Genre: Historical
Swearwords: None.
Description: The ferry from Coulport to Ardentinny was still there when I was a boy.
Swearwords: None.
Description: The ferry from Coulport to Ardentinny was still there when I was a boy.
“I don’t think Sir Walter Scott was very comfortable with Highlanders.”
He’s a compact man – not tall and certainly not fat but stocky and exuding a sense of quiet power. The kind of person, I suppose, that you’d turn to in a crisis. He is softly spoken and there is an accent – no, not exactly an accent but a phrasing of the words that doesn’t affect the clarity. He’s only the second Scotchman I’ve spoken to and the first I’ve understood.
We’re standing on the station of a wayside halt called Garelochhead and I glanced along the platform where Mama is poised, notebook in hand listening to a tramp singing a traditional Scottish air.
‘Wi’ the coo-coo’s cryin’ and the roarin’ o’ the bulls,
Ye’ll aye be contented on the Braes o’ Bonhill.’
“Is that a genuine Scottish Folk Song?” I asked my companion.
“Maybe aye and maybe hooch-aye, as we say in these parts.”
I was warming to the man and rapidly revising my impression of North Britain. I’m only here because Mama heard Lady Nairn’s songs at a gala concert and decided that she had to do her bit to rescue lost masterpieces of folklore before the recently dawned twentieth century destroyed them forever. I flatly refused to accompany her, of course, but she reminded me that she holds the purse-strings until I reach twenty-five.
She spelled out her conditions with great clarity: spending a month between July and August touring the Highlands would ensure that I would have ample funds for the London Season. Our journey was uneventful until the overnight sleeper arrived at Glasgow Central Station. The man on the platform was certainly dressed in an authentic Caledonian Railway uniform but he spoke what I took at first to be a foreign language.
He stopped and looked at me, clearly expecting some response and when I asked him to repeat what he had just said; he lost his temper and began shouting at me. A few words were intelligible but I was still totally at a loss as to his requirements. Fortunately Mr Arbuthnott, Mama’s friend, alighted at this moment and translated. He took charge of our journey across town in a hansom cab to another station where we boarded the West Highland Express to Fort William.
Mother’s companion, the delectable Miss Sarah Goldsmith, thought that my predicament was most amusing. I suppose that was her way of getting back at me for being ‘fresh’ the previous evening when we boarded the train. I only meant to offer my hand to help her ascend to the carriage but I was tempted by the glimpse of wrist between her glove and coat. I don’t see a stolen kiss on her hand as a serious assault on her virtue! Now Sarah – Miss Goldsmith, I mean – and Arbuthnott are continuing the journey to Fort William with the luggage while Mama and I are standing on a draughty platform at the end of the world listening to a scruffy local caterwauling. She heard the noise when the train pulled into the station and insisted on alighting.
I have to admit that Garelochhead is rather pretty. We are some distance above the town surrounded by hills covered in, I suppose, heather although it looks nothing like the nosegays the girls sell at Covent Garden. Now I think about it, there is rather a breeze blowing and it is swirling around under my Scottish kilt, which reminds me:
“I seem to be the only person properly dressed, don’t ye know!”
“Well we generally wear the kilt only when we’re off to war – or sometimes when we’re courting. Trousers are worn when peace reigns and they’re a sight more practical for walking through gorse.”
I was getting lost again: I can understand his speech without difficulty but some of the words are strange to me. Perhaps ‘gorse’ is a place or another name for boggy terrain. His trousers are tucked inside heavy woollen stockings and he is wearing sturdy boots very similar to the ones I bought for the outdoor staff in the spring. My knee length boots are modelled on those popularised by Lord Wellington in the Peninsular War.
The song had stopped and Mama was sailing down the platform like a battleship, escorted by the Station Master carrying her travelling desk and the Songster struggling with her parasol, like two rather scruffy frigates.
“Mr More, I presume,” Mama trilled, holding out her right hand to my companion. He removed his flat cap with his left hand and made a sweeping bow while he grasped her fingers with his right and brought them to within a hairsbreadth of his lips. I’ve seen that tricky manoeuvre done worse at the Palace of St James!
As instructed, I gave the Station Master a half crown and he escorted the singer down the hill towards the village.
“He has a throat condition,” Mama explained. “They are going to find the special medicine he needs to gargle.” She paused for a moment. “That’s rather a nasty cough, Mr More. I don’t think the climate in Scotland can be very healthy.”
My impression was that the cough was a hasty attempt to disguise a laugh. I found my hackles rising: Mama means well and I will not have anyone mocking her. I know we’re guests, and all that sort of thing, and I hate confrontations but there is a line beyond which one must make a stand.
“I say, you Scotch chappies don’t seem to have much national pride, don’t ya know? I mean it’s left to Mama to collect your historic ditties and it takes an Englishman to wear your national dress,” and I shook the hem of my kilt at him.
“You are confusing the myth with the reality. Our national dress is a garment made from a single bolt of cloth about four yards long by a yard across; during the day we wrap it around our hips and wear the rest over our heads and shoulders to keep out the wind and rain; at night we use it as a blanket.”
He went on to say that the elaborate patterns of the tartan kilt were too expensive for ordinary people. They sheared the sheep, carded and spun the wool and then wove and fulled the cloth. They used dyes made from plants, seaweed and marine crustaceans to colour the cloth. They had songs but the words were in Gaelic, the old language, as he called it. Many of the tunes had a strong beat to accompany communal tasks like rowing.
He explained to Mama that many of the words she would collect in the course of her journey would be recent inventions often owing more to the music hall than to tradition. Robert Burns, the famous Scottish poet, wrote new verses for many of the old, historical airs.
“This jacket I’m wearing is made from wool from my own sheep. It was carded and spun by my mother when she was a lass and she wove it on her own loom. She stitched the jacket for my father when they became handfast – engaged, you call it. Our tradition lies deeper than kilts and lullabies!”
Mama clapped her hands and cried ‘bravo!’ at the conclusion of this impassioned speech.
“I, alas, am the wrong age and many would say the wrong sex but I would like to know more of your traditions. Would you take my son, Horatio, home with you for a few weeks to let him learn your ways?”
I don’t know which of us was the more taken aback but it was my Highland friend who recovered first while I was still gasping in disbelief.
“I salute you, ma’am. I will be proud to have your son as my guest. For the next two weeks he will live our lives with the new name of Tarquin.”
They walked off together discussing the details of returning me at the end of my period of exile and I heard the songster mumble to the Station Master that ‘McIain’s losin’ his marbles; he must have meant Torquil, surely.’
We waited until the next train arrived and placed Mama on board before Mr More and I set off across the heather. I was still nursing my usual grievance: I was the one expected to do everything and no one even bothered to ask my opinion. Mama had charmed Mr More into taking me and she had the other two men competing to do her bidding but it wouldn’t cross her mind to consult her own son.
My companion was a step or two ahead of me since our path was narrow and snaked about bushes and clumps of coarse grass. He made one or two attempts to start a conversation but I replied in monosyllabic grunts. Mama would describe my displeasure as a ‘sulk’.
“I liked the way you were ready to fight when you thought I was laughing at your mother.” I thought about that for a moment but it really demanded a response.
“You were laughing at her.”
“I was laughing because one innocent word is used so differently in England and Scotland. What Archie wanted was an alcoholic drink – up here we call that a ‘gargle’ – while your mother took the word at face value and thought he had a medical condition. I just hope she doesn’t support total abstinence!”
“Not her! She’ll burst her corset laughing when I explain it to her.”
I told him I was really struggling with the different use of words. In particular I was bewildered about his name; I thought he told me he was Hector Campbell but Mama calls him Mr More and the Station Master seems to call him McIain.
“I belong to a clan and our family name is Campbell. If you meet a dozen men in Argyll, ten of them will be Campbells. To avoid confusion small groups called septs usually living in the same glen, will have a sort of nickname. We had an ancestor called Iain Campbell and his descendants are McIains. I’m the chief of that sept so they call me McIain Mhor – that means the Big Son of Iain in the English.”
So Mama calling him Mr More would be like me calling someone Mr Duke or Mr Baronet. I was still struggling to understand why the chief of part of a clan had walked forty or fifty miles across barren moors to drive cattle to be loaded onto a train in Garelochhead. Many of my chums have titles and none of them would be caught dead in the presence of a cow.
Our path twisted and turned but it was almost level for the most part. We were surrounded by gently rolling hills but the background was filled with slate-coloured mountains. One moment we were walking in the bottom of a shallow green bowl and the next we topped a little rise and I could see a stretch of water beyond another mile or so of moorland.
Below us there was a little lake, perfectly circular and so still it reflected the clouds without distortion.
“That’s Lochan Ghlas.”
The surface did indeed look like glass but McIain told me the name was Gaelic and meant grey. It was the little grey pond. Twenty-five years ago or thereabouts well-to-do merchants from Glasgow moved to the west side of a peninsula in the Firth of Clyde, building three villages. Over a thousand people now live there and their drinking water is supplied from Lochan Ghlas.
“When you gave me a Gaelic name, did you mean Torquil? I’ve a friend with that name and the Station Master thought that must have been what you said.”
“Aye well, I was making a wee bit fun of you. You were ready to do battle for your mother but you let yourself be pushed to the side. I couldn’t see you as a bold Horatio holding the bridge over the Tiber but more of a Tarquinus Superbus strutting about in fancy clothes.”
I should have been angry, I suppose, but McIain said it with an apologetic smile. It’s true, what he said. It’s not only Mama that drives me down a path of her choosing, all my friends do it to me as well. It is never me who decides what we should do or how we should behave. Even before I left school I had learned to hide my hopes and dreams. Suddenly, I found myself asking McIain what I should do about Miss Sarah Goldsmith; I think I could fall in love with her but she’s only a companion and Mama has already selected four or five well-connected girls to be my future wife.
“In the circles in which you circulate it is perfectly possible to be successfully married to a woman you don’t love. On the other hand, if you find a soul-mate she will immeasurably improve the joy you find and the success of all your undertakings. If you would fail in your duty to your family by marrying Miss Goldsmith then put her out of your mind but if it’s only to please your mother and friends don’t hesitate to court her.”
We walked on up a gentle rise onto another ridge from which we could look down as if from a hot air balloon on a vast arena of hills and water. Looking to the left there was the Firth of Clyde with ships at anchor and smaller vessels leaving pale grey tracks as they buzzed from one shore to the other. In the background the view was obscured by the fog of smoke from the factories and homes of the cities. To the right the view was of mountains one behind the other rising into clear, unpolluted sky. Our destination is straight ahead in a valley behind the first range of hills. Between us is a great sea loch barely half a mile wide but running for twenty miles into the Highlands far to the north.
It is called Loch Long but I was learning not to take place names for granted in the Highlands.
“There’s some say it’s from ‘Loingeas’, the Gaelic word for ships. Tradition has it that the Vikings sailed up the Loch and hauled their long-ships overland to Loch Lomond for an attack on the rich farmland around Killin.”
We had reached Duchlage farm by this time and he was able to show what he meant on the map of the area framed on the wall of the gun room. We were offered hospitality by the farmer and his wife quite as a matter of course. I was assured that the traditions of the clansmen demanded that even a mortal enemy should be given food and shelter.
“That’s why the Glencoe massacre caused such a scandal,” George Fraser said, giving McIain a sly look.
“We’ll let that flea stick to the wa’, George,” he said. Then he turned to me. ”It was an ignoble act by my clansmen, Tarquin and it will never be forgotten.”
I was accommodated on a camp bed in a corner of the kitchen. It was comfortable enough but so narrow that if you turned over you turned out. As a result of my walk and the substantial supper, I don’t think I moved for eight hours. I was surprised to wake up refreshed and ready to set off on legs that had suffered little ill effect from the unusual exercise of the day before. My stockings were snagged and I had several irksome scratches around my knees and up my thighs almost as far as my drawers – I was not bold enough to be a true Scot, in that respect!
We made our way down to the shore after a huge breakfast, arriving at the Coulport ferry before eight o’clock. There was a slipway housing a small dinghy but the only sign of life was a sheep quietly cropping grass growing in the centre of the track we had walked down. My companion led the way around an outcrop of rocks into a small sandy cove where an old man was digging worms from the dark grey sand. They spoke in Gaelic for several minutes before McIain turned to me:
“Can you row?”
It is the one athletic accomplishment I can boast. Not without pride, I told him that I had rowed number six in my college boat in the Head of the River bumps for two years.
“Aye well, we’ll just see how well you do in the tide race in Loch Long.”
We had launched the ten foot dinghy and he waved me to the middle thwart where I fitted the sculls in the rowlocks. It was a still morning and the Loch had been flat calm as we approached it. Now there was a little swirl of current catching the bow as I pulled clear of the shelter afforded by the slipway. I had about thirty seconds to enjoy the feel of the oars driving us through the water before we were grabbed by a sea monster and thrust spinning into a maelstrom.
It was only seconds, I’m sure, but it felt like half an hour before I recovered control of the little vessel and by that time I couldn’t recognise the shore on either side. McIain was quietly baiting hooks on a reel of heavy fishing line. He lowered them into the water before he lit his pipe and relaxed in the stern grinning at me.
“The tide runs four knots in the mouth of Loch Long,” he told me.
I had to row with all my might for the next twenty minutes or so after which the tide slackened. McIain had landed three nice fish of about two pounds each by the time I could draw breath. They feed in the fast water and can only be caught at the height of the making or ebbing of the tide. We had been carried almost a mile up Loch Long while I was getting control and by the time we got back to the slipway a much larger dinghy was waiting for us.
The old man took one of the fish for the use of his boat and equipment while the other two paid our fare for the crossing to Ardentinny. Safely ashore, McIain took me to a field where a large bull looked up from a water trough and trotted happily across to the wall to greet us. Even the beasts seem to be hospitable here!
“Could you swim to Coulport, do you think?”
It’s not more than half a mile and the water was like a mirror with no sign of even the gentlest current. I told him that I might manage if my life depended on it. He patted the bull just above the ring through its nose.
“This fellow can swim it both ways. His predecessor once made four crossings in a day but he was never the same afterwards. He’s a Judas Bull.”
Cattle swim well but they are normally reluctant to enter deep water. The Judas Bull is tied to the ferry boat and he walks into the Loch without fear or hesitation. Encouraged by the drovers, the other cattle follow his lead. ‘Pour encourages les autres’ as our French friends say.
The land is more mountainous on the Ardentinny side of Loch Long and we were climbing through woods across the shoulder of a substantial hill until around noon. By the time we had climbed out of the little forest the track was leading us away from the Loch into a coll between two mountains. I managed to keep up with McIain by saving all my breath for the exertions. He was breathing like a man sitting at ease in his armchair. As we walked, he told me about the life of a Highland laird.
“I’m like the Judas Bull. I lead my people by example never asking them to do what I’ve not attempted. I made this drive because my factor thought it would be more economical than loading the cattle on a boat and sailing them to Glasgow. It’s rubbish, of course, but it was up to me to prove the point!”
After a further hour of climbing we breasted a ridge and looked down into a beautiful vale hidden amongst the mountains. On our right was a long, narrow loch and to the left, the valley opened out into a sea loch with homes and workshops ringing the shores. We stopped while my companion proudly pointed out all the features of this little paradise.
Not far below the ridge we came to cultivated fields; folk working the land waved and shouted friendly greetings as we passed. When I visit the estate I’ll inherit when I’m twenty-five, the people treat me with respect but with no particular interest. McIain was clearly respected but there was real warmth in the greetings. While I’ve been preparing myself by studying the law and accounting, he runs his estate from the front giving his people an example to follow.
My legs felt strong after my long walk but my shoulders were hurting after my fight to keep control of the dinghy in the fast-flowing waters of Loch Long. McIain had his twelve year old eldest son, Ewan, take me to the stables where I had horse liniment rubbed into the affected parts. The stable man chuckled as he prodded my weary muscles with iron fingers.
“I don’t suppose McIain told you that he rowed twice for Oxford? He was President in his third year but he had to give it all up when his father died. That was in the last year of the old century.”
I was treated like a visiting prince by everyone on the estate – except for his two little daughters who couldn’t stop themselves giggling at the powerful aroma of horse embrocation that clung to me for the three days I remained with them. My Mama sent a telegram from Inverness recalling me because Arbuthnott had developed ‘a throat’; I was tempted to suggest that he use the Station Master’s gargle but I dutifully agreed to get myself to Glasgow. We made a family outing of my departure. Mrs McIain and the younger children were in the dog cart while Ewan walked with his father and me at the head of the procession.
Dunoon is growing in importance as a resort town with the advent of the steamers but even here McIain was greeted with respect and pleasure. He was even greeted by the captain of the vessel tied up to the pier and I spent the short trip to Gourock on the bridge listening to the virtues of sea travel. It is about five paces from the pier at Gourock to the railway terminal.
My time with the McIains changed me. When I rejoined Mama in the station hotel I saw for the first time that she was a rather sad, aging lady using the admiration of Arbuthnott to cling to her youth; it didn’t change my response to her – or to him – but it did make me more tolerant. The only one who noticed was Sarah – Miss Goldsmith – but that caused a seismic shift in my life.
I missed the London season that year, going back to my estate and working on the Home Farm. My society friends were openly scathing and I suspect that the farm hands were even more sceptical although they thought it safer to hide their feelings. Sarah understood and gladly agreed to share my ambitions as my wife.
That all happened almost six years ago. Now I’m in Northern France in this early summer of 1917, ADC to General James Matthews, thirteenth Earl of Rathwell. He was standing in his office door talking to me when his face lit up at the sight of the stranger who had entered my room from the courtyard. I stepped back and turned to see who had arrived.
After two and a half years in the army, I had learned to look first at the shoulders and left breast of newcomers. Our visitor wore the tabs of a brigadier over the empty left sleeve of a battledress blouse; amongst other ribbons there was a Croix de Guerre and a Military Medal. It was only then that I let my eyes rise to his face.
“McIain!” My old fiend was standing there large as life, grinning at the general.
“Are you well Jamie and is young Tarquin keeping your temper under control?”
He shook my hand and passed into the inner sanctum with his arm around the Earl’s shoulders. I’d written a thank you note after my visit and I’d even sent them a copy of Mama’s little monograph of lyric gems but we had lost touch in the press of events. I knew, as every soldier in France did, about the dashing Major Campbell, as he then was, who insisted on leading his troops into the trenches when they had front-line duties but I hadn’t associated the stories with McIain Mhor. I should have recognised a Judas Bull when I heard of one!
They called me into the office after ten minutes or so while he explained to my general why I was nicknamed ‘Tarquin’. The Earl owns the next estate to McIain and the two men, so different in temperament and background are clearly firm friends. General James returned to the Colours in August 1914 but McIain was opposed to the War; he reluctantly joined up to fulfil his obligation to lead his people who had all volunteered for active service.
“I hear you’re still having problems with old McGregor,” McIain suggested after I poured them yet another dram. The general spluttered and his face went brick red.
“He’s taken to corrupting youth now. He gave Flora, my youngest, a polecat and she goes out in those awful dungarees the young women are wearing, netting rabbits!”
“At least that’ll give McGregor more time to put venison and salmon on your table.”
“Damn it all man – it’s my venison and my salmon the old blackguard is poaching!”
Since the able-bodied men joined the army, old McGregor has been supplying McIain’s wife and the general’s lady with food for the larder. Lord James is the local magistrate and he has been trying to jail the old poacher for fifteen years or more. No one knows how old he is but he claims direct descent from Rob Roy McGregor and was given a luck-piece by the famous bandit in his cradle, according to him. That would make him at least a hundred and fifty years old!
“He must be at least eighty for I remember him as an old man when I was a boy. He would have given up poaching years ago if it hadn’t been for Jamie trying to trap him. He sees it as a game that keeps him active.
“Walter Scott wanted the Highlanders to be noble savages but the truth is that they’re just wee boys at heart. It’s all a game to us.”
I pointed to his empty sleeve.
“Being a Judas Bull seems to be a pretty rough game.”
“You’re learning, Tarquin,” he laughed. “There’s hope for you yet.”
He’s a compact man – not tall and certainly not fat but stocky and exuding a sense of quiet power. The kind of person, I suppose, that you’d turn to in a crisis. He is softly spoken and there is an accent – no, not exactly an accent but a phrasing of the words that doesn’t affect the clarity. He’s only the second Scotchman I’ve spoken to and the first I’ve understood.
We’re standing on the station of a wayside halt called Garelochhead and I glanced along the platform where Mama is poised, notebook in hand listening to a tramp singing a traditional Scottish air.
‘Wi’ the coo-coo’s cryin’ and the roarin’ o’ the bulls,
Ye’ll aye be contented on the Braes o’ Bonhill.’
“Is that a genuine Scottish Folk Song?” I asked my companion.
“Maybe aye and maybe hooch-aye, as we say in these parts.”
I was warming to the man and rapidly revising my impression of North Britain. I’m only here because Mama heard Lady Nairn’s songs at a gala concert and decided that she had to do her bit to rescue lost masterpieces of folklore before the recently dawned twentieth century destroyed them forever. I flatly refused to accompany her, of course, but she reminded me that she holds the purse-strings until I reach twenty-five.
She spelled out her conditions with great clarity: spending a month between July and August touring the Highlands would ensure that I would have ample funds for the London Season. Our journey was uneventful until the overnight sleeper arrived at Glasgow Central Station. The man on the platform was certainly dressed in an authentic Caledonian Railway uniform but he spoke what I took at first to be a foreign language.
He stopped and looked at me, clearly expecting some response and when I asked him to repeat what he had just said; he lost his temper and began shouting at me. A few words were intelligible but I was still totally at a loss as to his requirements. Fortunately Mr Arbuthnott, Mama’s friend, alighted at this moment and translated. He took charge of our journey across town in a hansom cab to another station where we boarded the West Highland Express to Fort William.
Mother’s companion, the delectable Miss Sarah Goldsmith, thought that my predicament was most amusing. I suppose that was her way of getting back at me for being ‘fresh’ the previous evening when we boarded the train. I only meant to offer my hand to help her ascend to the carriage but I was tempted by the glimpse of wrist between her glove and coat. I don’t see a stolen kiss on her hand as a serious assault on her virtue! Now Sarah – Miss Goldsmith, I mean – and Arbuthnott are continuing the journey to Fort William with the luggage while Mama and I are standing on a draughty platform at the end of the world listening to a scruffy local caterwauling. She heard the noise when the train pulled into the station and insisted on alighting.
I have to admit that Garelochhead is rather pretty. We are some distance above the town surrounded by hills covered in, I suppose, heather although it looks nothing like the nosegays the girls sell at Covent Garden. Now I think about it, there is rather a breeze blowing and it is swirling around under my Scottish kilt, which reminds me:
“I seem to be the only person properly dressed, don’t ye know!”
“Well we generally wear the kilt only when we’re off to war – or sometimes when we’re courting. Trousers are worn when peace reigns and they’re a sight more practical for walking through gorse.”
I was getting lost again: I can understand his speech without difficulty but some of the words are strange to me. Perhaps ‘gorse’ is a place or another name for boggy terrain. His trousers are tucked inside heavy woollen stockings and he is wearing sturdy boots very similar to the ones I bought for the outdoor staff in the spring. My knee length boots are modelled on those popularised by Lord Wellington in the Peninsular War.
The song had stopped and Mama was sailing down the platform like a battleship, escorted by the Station Master carrying her travelling desk and the Songster struggling with her parasol, like two rather scruffy frigates.
“Mr More, I presume,” Mama trilled, holding out her right hand to my companion. He removed his flat cap with his left hand and made a sweeping bow while he grasped her fingers with his right and brought them to within a hairsbreadth of his lips. I’ve seen that tricky manoeuvre done worse at the Palace of St James!
As instructed, I gave the Station Master a half crown and he escorted the singer down the hill towards the village.
“He has a throat condition,” Mama explained. “They are going to find the special medicine he needs to gargle.” She paused for a moment. “That’s rather a nasty cough, Mr More. I don’t think the climate in Scotland can be very healthy.”
My impression was that the cough was a hasty attempt to disguise a laugh. I found my hackles rising: Mama means well and I will not have anyone mocking her. I know we’re guests, and all that sort of thing, and I hate confrontations but there is a line beyond which one must make a stand.
“I say, you Scotch chappies don’t seem to have much national pride, don’t ya know? I mean it’s left to Mama to collect your historic ditties and it takes an Englishman to wear your national dress,” and I shook the hem of my kilt at him.
“You are confusing the myth with the reality. Our national dress is a garment made from a single bolt of cloth about four yards long by a yard across; during the day we wrap it around our hips and wear the rest over our heads and shoulders to keep out the wind and rain; at night we use it as a blanket.”
He went on to say that the elaborate patterns of the tartan kilt were too expensive for ordinary people. They sheared the sheep, carded and spun the wool and then wove and fulled the cloth. They used dyes made from plants, seaweed and marine crustaceans to colour the cloth. They had songs but the words were in Gaelic, the old language, as he called it. Many of the tunes had a strong beat to accompany communal tasks like rowing.
He explained to Mama that many of the words she would collect in the course of her journey would be recent inventions often owing more to the music hall than to tradition. Robert Burns, the famous Scottish poet, wrote new verses for many of the old, historical airs.
“This jacket I’m wearing is made from wool from my own sheep. It was carded and spun by my mother when she was a lass and she wove it on her own loom. She stitched the jacket for my father when they became handfast – engaged, you call it. Our tradition lies deeper than kilts and lullabies!”
Mama clapped her hands and cried ‘bravo!’ at the conclusion of this impassioned speech.
“I, alas, am the wrong age and many would say the wrong sex but I would like to know more of your traditions. Would you take my son, Horatio, home with you for a few weeks to let him learn your ways?”
I don’t know which of us was the more taken aback but it was my Highland friend who recovered first while I was still gasping in disbelief.
“I salute you, ma’am. I will be proud to have your son as my guest. For the next two weeks he will live our lives with the new name of Tarquin.”
They walked off together discussing the details of returning me at the end of my period of exile and I heard the songster mumble to the Station Master that ‘McIain’s losin’ his marbles; he must have meant Torquil, surely.’
We waited until the next train arrived and placed Mama on board before Mr More and I set off across the heather. I was still nursing my usual grievance: I was the one expected to do everything and no one even bothered to ask my opinion. Mama had charmed Mr More into taking me and she had the other two men competing to do her bidding but it wouldn’t cross her mind to consult her own son.
My companion was a step or two ahead of me since our path was narrow and snaked about bushes and clumps of coarse grass. He made one or two attempts to start a conversation but I replied in monosyllabic grunts. Mama would describe my displeasure as a ‘sulk’.
“I liked the way you were ready to fight when you thought I was laughing at your mother.” I thought about that for a moment but it really demanded a response.
“You were laughing at her.”
“I was laughing because one innocent word is used so differently in England and Scotland. What Archie wanted was an alcoholic drink – up here we call that a ‘gargle’ – while your mother took the word at face value and thought he had a medical condition. I just hope she doesn’t support total abstinence!”
“Not her! She’ll burst her corset laughing when I explain it to her.”
I told him I was really struggling with the different use of words. In particular I was bewildered about his name; I thought he told me he was Hector Campbell but Mama calls him Mr More and the Station Master seems to call him McIain.
“I belong to a clan and our family name is Campbell. If you meet a dozen men in Argyll, ten of them will be Campbells. To avoid confusion small groups called septs usually living in the same glen, will have a sort of nickname. We had an ancestor called Iain Campbell and his descendants are McIains. I’m the chief of that sept so they call me McIain Mhor – that means the Big Son of Iain in the English.”
So Mama calling him Mr More would be like me calling someone Mr Duke or Mr Baronet. I was still struggling to understand why the chief of part of a clan had walked forty or fifty miles across barren moors to drive cattle to be loaded onto a train in Garelochhead. Many of my chums have titles and none of them would be caught dead in the presence of a cow.
Our path twisted and turned but it was almost level for the most part. We were surrounded by gently rolling hills but the background was filled with slate-coloured mountains. One moment we were walking in the bottom of a shallow green bowl and the next we topped a little rise and I could see a stretch of water beyond another mile or so of moorland.
Below us there was a little lake, perfectly circular and so still it reflected the clouds without distortion.
“That’s Lochan Ghlas.”
The surface did indeed look like glass but McIain told me the name was Gaelic and meant grey. It was the little grey pond. Twenty-five years ago or thereabouts well-to-do merchants from Glasgow moved to the west side of a peninsula in the Firth of Clyde, building three villages. Over a thousand people now live there and their drinking water is supplied from Lochan Ghlas.
“When you gave me a Gaelic name, did you mean Torquil? I’ve a friend with that name and the Station Master thought that must have been what you said.”
“Aye well, I was making a wee bit fun of you. You were ready to do battle for your mother but you let yourself be pushed to the side. I couldn’t see you as a bold Horatio holding the bridge over the Tiber but more of a Tarquinus Superbus strutting about in fancy clothes.”
I should have been angry, I suppose, but McIain said it with an apologetic smile. It’s true, what he said. It’s not only Mama that drives me down a path of her choosing, all my friends do it to me as well. It is never me who decides what we should do or how we should behave. Even before I left school I had learned to hide my hopes and dreams. Suddenly, I found myself asking McIain what I should do about Miss Sarah Goldsmith; I think I could fall in love with her but she’s only a companion and Mama has already selected four or five well-connected girls to be my future wife.
“In the circles in which you circulate it is perfectly possible to be successfully married to a woman you don’t love. On the other hand, if you find a soul-mate she will immeasurably improve the joy you find and the success of all your undertakings. If you would fail in your duty to your family by marrying Miss Goldsmith then put her out of your mind but if it’s only to please your mother and friends don’t hesitate to court her.”
We walked on up a gentle rise onto another ridge from which we could look down as if from a hot air balloon on a vast arena of hills and water. Looking to the left there was the Firth of Clyde with ships at anchor and smaller vessels leaving pale grey tracks as they buzzed from one shore to the other. In the background the view was obscured by the fog of smoke from the factories and homes of the cities. To the right the view was of mountains one behind the other rising into clear, unpolluted sky. Our destination is straight ahead in a valley behind the first range of hills. Between us is a great sea loch barely half a mile wide but running for twenty miles into the Highlands far to the north.
It is called Loch Long but I was learning not to take place names for granted in the Highlands.
“There’s some say it’s from ‘Loingeas’, the Gaelic word for ships. Tradition has it that the Vikings sailed up the Loch and hauled their long-ships overland to Loch Lomond for an attack on the rich farmland around Killin.”
We had reached Duchlage farm by this time and he was able to show what he meant on the map of the area framed on the wall of the gun room. We were offered hospitality by the farmer and his wife quite as a matter of course. I was assured that the traditions of the clansmen demanded that even a mortal enemy should be given food and shelter.
“That’s why the Glencoe massacre caused such a scandal,” George Fraser said, giving McIain a sly look.
“We’ll let that flea stick to the wa’, George,” he said. Then he turned to me. ”It was an ignoble act by my clansmen, Tarquin and it will never be forgotten.”
I was accommodated on a camp bed in a corner of the kitchen. It was comfortable enough but so narrow that if you turned over you turned out. As a result of my walk and the substantial supper, I don’t think I moved for eight hours. I was surprised to wake up refreshed and ready to set off on legs that had suffered little ill effect from the unusual exercise of the day before. My stockings were snagged and I had several irksome scratches around my knees and up my thighs almost as far as my drawers – I was not bold enough to be a true Scot, in that respect!
We made our way down to the shore after a huge breakfast, arriving at the Coulport ferry before eight o’clock. There was a slipway housing a small dinghy but the only sign of life was a sheep quietly cropping grass growing in the centre of the track we had walked down. My companion led the way around an outcrop of rocks into a small sandy cove where an old man was digging worms from the dark grey sand. They spoke in Gaelic for several minutes before McIain turned to me:
“Can you row?”
It is the one athletic accomplishment I can boast. Not without pride, I told him that I had rowed number six in my college boat in the Head of the River bumps for two years.
“Aye well, we’ll just see how well you do in the tide race in Loch Long.”
We had launched the ten foot dinghy and he waved me to the middle thwart where I fitted the sculls in the rowlocks. It was a still morning and the Loch had been flat calm as we approached it. Now there was a little swirl of current catching the bow as I pulled clear of the shelter afforded by the slipway. I had about thirty seconds to enjoy the feel of the oars driving us through the water before we were grabbed by a sea monster and thrust spinning into a maelstrom.
It was only seconds, I’m sure, but it felt like half an hour before I recovered control of the little vessel and by that time I couldn’t recognise the shore on either side. McIain was quietly baiting hooks on a reel of heavy fishing line. He lowered them into the water before he lit his pipe and relaxed in the stern grinning at me.
“The tide runs four knots in the mouth of Loch Long,” he told me.
I had to row with all my might for the next twenty minutes or so after which the tide slackened. McIain had landed three nice fish of about two pounds each by the time I could draw breath. They feed in the fast water and can only be caught at the height of the making or ebbing of the tide. We had been carried almost a mile up Loch Long while I was getting control and by the time we got back to the slipway a much larger dinghy was waiting for us.
The old man took one of the fish for the use of his boat and equipment while the other two paid our fare for the crossing to Ardentinny. Safely ashore, McIain took me to a field where a large bull looked up from a water trough and trotted happily across to the wall to greet us. Even the beasts seem to be hospitable here!
“Could you swim to Coulport, do you think?”
It’s not more than half a mile and the water was like a mirror with no sign of even the gentlest current. I told him that I might manage if my life depended on it. He patted the bull just above the ring through its nose.
“This fellow can swim it both ways. His predecessor once made four crossings in a day but he was never the same afterwards. He’s a Judas Bull.”
Cattle swim well but they are normally reluctant to enter deep water. The Judas Bull is tied to the ferry boat and he walks into the Loch without fear or hesitation. Encouraged by the drovers, the other cattle follow his lead. ‘Pour encourages les autres’ as our French friends say.
The land is more mountainous on the Ardentinny side of Loch Long and we were climbing through woods across the shoulder of a substantial hill until around noon. By the time we had climbed out of the little forest the track was leading us away from the Loch into a coll between two mountains. I managed to keep up with McIain by saving all my breath for the exertions. He was breathing like a man sitting at ease in his armchair. As we walked, he told me about the life of a Highland laird.
“I’m like the Judas Bull. I lead my people by example never asking them to do what I’ve not attempted. I made this drive because my factor thought it would be more economical than loading the cattle on a boat and sailing them to Glasgow. It’s rubbish, of course, but it was up to me to prove the point!”
After a further hour of climbing we breasted a ridge and looked down into a beautiful vale hidden amongst the mountains. On our right was a long, narrow loch and to the left, the valley opened out into a sea loch with homes and workshops ringing the shores. We stopped while my companion proudly pointed out all the features of this little paradise.
Not far below the ridge we came to cultivated fields; folk working the land waved and shouted friendly greetings as we passed. When I visit the estate I’ll inherit when I’m twenty-five, the people treat me with respect but with no particular interest. McIain was clearly respected but there was real warmth in the greetings. While I’ve been preparing myself by studying the law and accounting, he runs his estate from the front giving his people an example to follow.
My legs felt strong after my long walk but my shoulders were hurting after my fight to keep control of the dinghy in the fast-flowing waters of Loch Long. McIain had his twelve year old eldest son, Ewan, take me to the stables where I had horse liniment rubbed into the affected parts. The stable man chuckled as he prodded my weary muscles with iron fingers.
“I don’t suppose McIain told you that he rowed twice for Oxford? He was President in his third year but he had to give it all up when his father died. That was in the last year of the old century.”
I was treated like a visiting prince by everyone on the estate – except for his two little daughters who couldn’t stop themselves giggling at the powerful aroma of horse embrocation that clung to me for the three days I remained with them. My Mama sent a telegram from Inverness recalling me because Arbuthnott had developed ‘a throat’; I was tempted to suggest that he use the Station Master’s gargle but I dutifully agreed to get myself to Glasgow. We made a family outing of my departure. Mrs McIain and the younger children were in the dog cart while Ewan walked with his father and me at the head of the procession.
Dunoon is growing in importance as a resort town with the advent of the steamers but even here McIain was greeted with respect and pleasure. He was even greeted by the captain of the vessel tied up to the pier and I spent the short trip to Gourock on the bridge listening to the virtues of sea travel. It is about five paces from the pier at Gourock to the railway terminal.
My time with the McIains changed me. When I rejoined Mama in the station hotel I saw for the first time that she was a rather sad, aging lady using the admiration of Arbuthnott to cling to her youth; it didn’t change my response to her – or to him – but it did make me more tolerant. The only one who noticed was Sarah – Miss Goldsmith – but that caused a seismic shift in my life.
I missed the London season that year, going back to my estate and working on the Home Farm. My society friends were openly scathing and I suspect that the farm hands were even more sceptical although they thought it safer to hide their feelings. Sarah understood and gladly agreed to share my ambitions as my wife.
That all happened almost six years ago. Now I’m in Northern France in this early summer of 1917, ADC to General James Matthews, thirteenth Earl of Rathwell. He was standing in his office door talking to me when his face lit up at the sight of the stranger who had entered my room from the courtyard. I stepped back and turned to see who had arrived.
After two and a half years in the army, I had learned to look first at the shoulders and left breast of newcomers. Our visitor wore the tabs of a brigadier over the empty left sleeve of a battledress blouse; amongst other ribbons there was a Croix de Guerre and a Military Medal. It was only then that I let my eyes rise to his face.
“McIain!” My old fiend was standing there large as life, grinning at the general.
“Are you well Jamie and is young Tarquin keeping your temper under control?”
He shook my hand and passed into the inner sanctum with his arm around the Earl’s shoulders. I’d written a thank you note after my visit and I’d even sent them a copy of Mama’s little monograph of lyric gems but we had lost touch in the press of events. I knew, as every soldier in France did, about the dashing Major Campbell, as he then was, who insisted on leading his troops into the trenches when they had front-line duties but I hadn’t associated the stories with McIain Mhor. I should have recognised a Judas Bull when I heard of one!
They called me into the office after ten minutes or so while he explained to my general why I was nicknamed ‘Tarquin’. The Earl owns the next estate to McIain and the two men, so different in temperament and background are clearly firm friends. General James returned to the Colours in August 1914 but McIain was opposed to the War; he reluctantly joined up to fulfil his obligation to lead his people who had all volunteered for active service.
“I hear you’re still having problems with old McGregor,” McIain suggested after I poured them yet another dram. The general spluttered and his face went brick red.
“He’s taken to corrupting youth now. He gave Flora, my youngest, a polecat and she goes out in those awful dungarees the young women are wearing, netting rabbits!”
“At least that’ll give McGregor more time to put venison and salmon on your table.”
“Damn it all man – it’s my venison and my salmon the old blackguard is poaching!”
Since the able-bodied men joined the army, old McGregor has been supplying McIain’s wife and the general’s lady with food for the larder. Lord James is the local magistrate and he has been trying to jail the old poacher for fifteen years or more. No one knows how old he is but he claims direct descent from Rob Roy McGregor and was given a luck-piece by the famous bandit in his cradle, according to him. That would make him at least a hundred and fifty years old!
“He must be at least eighty for I remember him as an old man when I was a boy. He would have given up poaching years ago if it hadn’t been for Jamie trying to trap him. He sees it as a game that keeps him active.
“Walter Scott wanted the Highlanders to be noble savages but the truth is that they’re just wee boys at heart. It’s all a game to us.”
I pointed to his empty sleeve.
“Being a Judas Bull seems to be a pretty rough game.”
“You’re learning, Tarquin,” he laughed. “There’s hope for you yet.”
About the Author
Originally from Dalmuir, Alasdair McPherson is now retired and living in exile in Lincolnshire.
He says he has always wanted to write, but life got in the way until recently. He has already penned thirteen novels and many short stories. His ten latest novels – The Island, Pilgrimage of Grace, Desert Ark, Swordsmiths, Loyalty, Killing Cousins, Damaged Lives, Patriotism, The Hobos' Union and Getting GOVAN out of the GIRLS – are all McStorytellers publications.
You can read Alasdair's full profile on McVoices.
He says he has always wanted to write, but life got in the way until recently. He has already penned thirteen novels and many short stories. His ten latest novels – The Island, Pilgrimage of Grace, Desert Ark, Swordsmiths, Loyalty, Killing Cousins, Damaged Lives, Patriotism, The Hobos' Union and Getting GOVAN out of the GIRLS – are all McStorytellers publications.
You can read Alasdair's full profile on McVoices.