Complete New Tales of Para Handy (55 page)

“ ‘Ah made peace wi' the mustress a' right, Peter,' says he: ‘but there wis no way I could huv feenished the round, Ah wisna fit for't by then.'

“ ‘So what did you do,' I asked: ‘did you get wan of your mates to feenish it for you?'

“ ‘Dod, no,' says Lex: ‘Ah could hae got the sack straight off for bein' fu' and in cherge o' a load of mails. No, there wis only wan thing tae dae, and Ah done it. Ye ken there's a mail box at the harbour entrance up yonder? Weel, I jist emptied my bag of a' the letters and packets in it, and posted the whole lot back again, and went hame.'

“And that's the man who canna be bothered to give me the time of day,” concluded Para Handy with disgust, and he examined the small brown envelope suspiciously. “Whit does
OHMS
mean?” he enquired, studying the imprint on its top left corner.

“
On His Majesty's Service
of course,” said the Engineer.

“And for why would King Edward be writing to me,” asked Para Handy incredulously, “for I'm sure I'm no' in his obleegement in any way.”

“Dinna be so daft,” said Macphail. “It's no a letter frae the King, that jist means it's an offeecial letter o' some sort. It wull be frae the Tax Office, or the Customs and Excise men, or something like that.”

Para Handy shivered apprehensively. “I am sure I am beholden to nobody for nothing,” and he ripped the envelope open and pulled out the flimsy sheet which it contained.

It was merely notification of a minor amendment, with regard to the lighting of Pilot Vessels, to the Merchant Shipping Acts of 1892, 1897 and 1904.

“Well, that iss a great relief,” said the Captain. “I neffer see these brown unvelopes but my hert sinks. I mind the trouble my mither's cousin Cherlie got into wance wi' the Tax people when he had that big ferm at Dunure, it wass the ruination of the man, and him the only member o' the femily that wass effer likely to mak' serious money.

“The trouble wass he hadna paid a penny piece of Income Tax for years, but eventually they caught up wi' him and he got a whole series of abusive letters demandin' to know whit way he hadna been keeping in touch and letting them know how he wass getting on, and threatening the poor soul wi' aal sorts of hellfire and brumstone if he didna pay up fast.

“I wull say this for Cherlie, he could aalways tell when he wass in real trouble, and he recognised that this wass the time for drastic action, so he pulled his tin trunk oot from under the bed, counted oot two hundred pounds, put them into a paper poke, and took the train from Ayr up to Gleska an went to the Tax Office.

“ ‘Cherlie Mackinnon from Dunure Ferm,' says he to the man at the desk by way of introduction, ‘and I've been getting a wheen o' letters from ye, so I thocht I'd best come and see you to straighten it aal oot.' And he tipped the money oot o' the poke onto the desk counter.

“ ‘Two hundred pound,' he says: ‘and I think that should see us straight. So, if you're happy wi' that, I'll be on my way back to the ferm': and he headed for the street door.

“The clerk wass aal taken aback but he recovered himself enough to shout to Cherlie, ‘Wait a meenit Mr Mackinnon, I'll have to give you a receipt for this money.'

“Cherlie wass almost in the street by this time but he stuck his head back round the door and said, ‘No, no, my mannie. You mustn't do that! That's
cash
— for peety's sake, you're neffer goin' to pit that through the
books
, are ye?'

Para Handy shook his head sadly. “Poor Cherlie, the Income Tax people went into his affairs wi' a most duvvelish ill-wull till he wass left with nothin' but the breeks he stood up in, they took the ferm off him to pay what they said he owed, and that wass the end of the only chance of a puckle money that either the Mackinnons or the Macfarlanes effer had aboot them!

“It iss chust a pity that Cherlie didna have the natural sagiocity and deviousness of Hurricane Jeck, for likely he would have had the ferm yet!

“While Jeck had the happy knack of spendin' money as if it grew on trees and aal he effer had to do wass chust wander oot and pick some more, he wass also pretty skilfull at keeping it oot of the hands of the Revenue and the Excise Officers.

“Wan time, when he wass wi' the Allan Line, he had bought himself a smaall barrel of white spurit from a private enterprise still run by an acquaintance o' his in Plantation, and installed it in the fore-cabin of the vessel he wass on. He wass a popular man wi' his shupmates that trup, and his price for the gill wass very fair.

“When they put in at Halifax in Nova Scotia Jeck still had a mair than half-full barrel o' illicit spurits in the fo'c'sle, and no intention at aal of surrendering it to the Canadian Excisemen, though he knew that they would be coming on board to search the shup. What he did wass, he got an empty whusky bottle from the Officer's Mess and filled it wi' watter that he coloured wi' a wheen o' burnt sugar so it looked like the real stuff.

“When the Excisemen came aboard and doon to the fo'c'sle — with the barrel of spurits lying on a trestle in the corner, quite openly, and wi' a spigot at the fore-end of her — Jeck admutted straight away that he had some undeclared whisky that wass due for a surcharge.

“ ‘But chust the wan bottle, chentlemen,' he said, producing the bottle o' coloured watter from his locker, ‘and I wull gi'e ye a wee taste so ye can assess it yourselves for strength and cheneral cheerfulness, but ye'd better watter it doon a bit for it iss strong stuff!' And did he no' get two glesses, and pour a gill or thereby of the coloured watter into them, and then chust as cool ass you like wander over to the barrel o' white spurits and fill the glesses up from the spigot! And the two Excisemen smacked their lips and said that yes, it wass a fine bottle of spurits, but there would be two dollars duty to pay, and when Jeck paid it they went off quite jocco, neffer for wan moment jalousing that there had been a barrel in the corner of the fore-cabin wi' aboot 12
gallons
of whusky in it!

“The only time that I effer heard of Jeck getting the worst of an encounter wi' the Customs or the Excisemen wass when he came back to Liverpool on that same trup.

“The barrel of spurits wass near enough finished but Jeck wass dem'd if he was going to leave ony of it behind. So the morning they docked he got ootside as much of it as he possibly could.”

“And knowing Jack,” interposed the Mate, “I would imagine that was a pretty impressive intake.”

“Chust so,” agreed the Captain: “in fact that wass his undoing. When he'd taken what he could carry internally, ass you might say, there wass still about two bottles-worth of spurits left in the barrel so he got two empty bottles, filled them, wrapped them in two dirty shirts, rammed them into the legs of his rubber boots, and stuffed the boots into the very bottom of his dunnage-bag under a pile of jerseys and oilskins and the like.

“Then he hoisted the bag onto his shouthers, and off like a full-rigged ship to the Customs Shed. By the time he got there, what wi' the fresh air and the amount of good spurits he had on board, for the first time in his life Jeck didna really know whether it was the Old New Year or a wet Thursday in Crarae.

“ ‘Have you onything to declare?' asked the Customs man, poking the dunnage-bag Jeck had laid on the coonter.

“Jeck beamed on him with immense kindliness. ‘Have I onything to declare?' says he, glowing with the greatest of good-wull to aal men, ‘yes indeed I have, but I am a sporting chentlemen and I will give you a chance to make some money on it.

“ ‘I'll bet you a pound you canna find it!'

“Poor Jeck spent the rest o' the day in some sort of a cells in the Customs-shed sobering up while they decided what to do with him, and he missed his train to Gleska.

“ ‘I tell you, Peter,' he said to me later: ‘if the Government go on at the rate they're goin' now they wull run oot of things to tax! A chentleman iss not a free man in this country any more, he iss hounded for his money from wan day to the next.

“ ‘Where will it aal end? Aboot the only things they havna taxed yet are horses or bicycles to pay for the roads, or pianos or harmoniums in the hoose to pay for their entertainment value, or the watter in the teps. That would be the final insult — it's bad enough paying tax on whusky, chust imagine if you had to pay tax on the watter to pit in it!' ”

Para Handy got to his feet and stretched. “Anyway, the owner wull be taxing us for idling awa' the day if we don't make a start. And I dinna want to stert gettin' broon unvelopes from him, apart from the wans wi' the pey in them!”

F
ACTNOTE

The original idea for this story came not just from the firm conviction (held, I am sure, by many) that with only a very few exceptions buff-coloured envelopes are not worth the bother of opening them, but also from the very vivid memory of a postman who served an office in which I once worked — but wild horses will not make me reveal which town that was in!

He did indeed arrive with our mail one Christmas Eve, rather the worse for wear, and he did indeed partake of a dram or two at the party which was in full swing that day in what was otherwise a rather conformist place of work, and after leaving the office, he did indeed post the contents of his satchel in a handily-placed letter-box — and go home: via the pub.

The first Allan Line ship to cross the Atlantic from Greenock sailed from that port in 1819. She was a small brig, the
Jean
, but she was forerunner of the huge fleets of vessels which flew the Allan Line flag independently across the Atlantic for almost 100 years. Though Glasgow remained their head-office Allan Line ships also provided services across to North America from Liverpool and Le Havre. The business was bought over and amalgamated with Canadian Pacific in 1915.

Typical of the larger Allan ships to be seen on the Clyde in the first decade of this century was the
Grampian
, a 10,000 ton liner built by Stephens of Linthouse for the Canadian service. While undergoing a postwar refit at Antwerp she was virtually gutted by fire, handed over to the insurers, and finally broken up four years later in 1925.

I don't know what it is about Customs at airports or seaports but it seems that even the most innocent person will suffer a harrowing guilt on the way through the Green Channel.

I always imagine that there is a large hand suspended in space above my head pointing unmistakeably in my direction, and I shiver yet at the recollection of coming through the Green Gate at Glasgow Airport when our family were kids, and the two of them looked up at me and shouted in piercing voices that seemed to echo round the hall for an eternity ‘Is this where they're going to stop you and search you, Daddy?'

Para Handy would find it hard to believe that almost everything in sight is indeed taxed nowadays. They maybe haven't taxed horses for using the roads — but they've hammered cars. And though pianos are, I think, still exempt, TVs have taken a bit of a beating.

God forbid that they should ever tax books!

A C
OMPANY AT
C
ARRADALE
— Just disembarked from the
Kinloch
are Campbeltown's Boy's Brigade unit, en route to their summer camp. Not ‘On His Majesty's Service' but seeing themselves as very much a serving and serviceable organisation, the movement was near its peak at this period and was a valued asset in the local community and a formative influence on youngsters from country and city alike.

47

All the Fun of the Fair

T
arbert Fair was in full swing and a great press of people was constantly moving hither and thither: along the shore road from the steamer pier to the inner harbour, where excitement at the finishing line of a rowing race was reaching fever pitch: from the inner harbour back to the steamer pier, to meet arrivals off the incoming
Lord of the Isles
: and from every direction to the centre of the town and out along the West Loch Tarbert road towards the showground and amusement park.

Finely turned-out open carriages accoutred in highly-polished brass and gleaming leather, their immaculate horses driven by a smartly-dressed coachman and occupied by young ladies in their brightest finery and twirling parasols, contrasted strongly (and strangely) with the carts in from the country — crammed with four generations of the same family, work-begrimed, drawn by a single patient Clydesdale. Poles apart in every regard but sharing the same excitement and sense of occasion on Tarbert's annual big day.

Aboard the steam-lighter tucked into the innermost recess of the coal harbour, ablutions were in progress as her crew made ready to join in the excitement. She had berthed just an hour earlier, after a helter-skelter dash (or the nearest thing to a helter-skelter dash of which she was capable) from Carradale, where she had been discharging cement.