The Hill of the Red Fox (6 page)

I thought with each sack I filled that this one must surely be the last I can will my weary body to carry, and each time we climbed the brae to the house I rested more heavily on the back of the cart. Somehow or other, I carried on, but in the end I was picking up peats without being conscious of the movement of my body.

When we unloaded the cart for the last time, and Murdo Beaton said, “That is enough for one day. It is time we were taking potatoes,” I could have flung myself down on the cool grass and lain there until sleep came.

He led the horse down to the byre, and Mairi thrust a towel and soap into my hands, and said quickly, “Take a wash in the tub; it will be good for you.”

At the end of the house a spring gushed out of the limestone rock into a tub below. The water was carried away by a side drain into the main drain running down the croft.

I took off my shirt and vest and washed the sweat and dust off my face and body. When I had dried myself I walked stiffly into the kitchen and sat down to dinner.

After soup, there was meat and potatoes. The potatoes were piled high in an enormous dish in the centre of the table, and we helped ourselves. Mindful of my uncertainty of the previous night, I watched Murdo Beaton hold up one on a fork, and peel it deftly with quick strokes of his knife, before I followed suit.

When the long grace was over, I excused myself and went to my room. I was going to write to my mother, and I thought I would undress first and get into bed. I can remember pulling back the blankets and swinging stiffly into bed, but no more.

I must have been asleep before my head touched the pillow.

My limbs were stiff and sore when I awoke the next morning. I thought I would never be able to stoop to lift a peat from the ground, but the stiffness soon passed. After I had filled the first two sacks, I was surprised to find that I was working more swiftly than before and carrying the loaded sack with greater ease.

The sun blazed down from the same cloudless sky, and it was a relief each time the cart was loaded and we followed it up the brae, away from the heat of the bog to the cooler air of the hillside.

By late afternoon, we had cleared over half the peats from the bog, and the
cailleach
started laying out peats to make a foundation for the stack.

Mairi and I were filling our sacks from the same heap, and Murdo Beaton was working a little way in front of us, when I first noticed the men coming down the brae from the crofts at Achmore. There were six of them, and they walked in a straight line, bunched closely together.

Mairi went on filling her sack until she noticed that I had stopped. She glanced up and saw the marching men, and her eyes went to her father’s bent back but he never even looked up.

The men crossed the fence at the bottom of the crofts and made their way over the bog towards us. Murdo Beaton straightened up, and I knew he had seen them, but he went on filling his creel with peats.

Neither Mairi nor I moved, and the six men carried on past Murdo Beaton without a word. He went on working, and they stopped in front of Mairi and me.

The man in the centre of the group stepped forward, his hand outstretched. He was a short, stocky man, and I took him to be the oldest of the five for his hair was white and he had a bushy white
moustache. His face was ruddy and smiling, and he looked at me from keen blue eyes beneath eyebrows as white as his hair.

“
Ceud mile failte agus slainte mhath,
Alasdair,” he cried, shaking my hand vigorously. Before I could speak he went on, “There you have it in the old tongue, my boy.” And he repeated solemnly in English, “A hundred thousand welcomes and good health, Alasdair.”

“Why, thank you,” I stammered.

He made a sound like tut-tut, spitting it out between clenched teeth.

“There is always a welcome at our firesides for the son of Alasdair Dubh,
an duine bochd
. I am Hector MacLeod and these are the men of Achmore come to welcome you home. We waited for you to come to us but if the mountain will not come to Mahomet, then Mahomet must go to the mountain.” He laughed hugely, and urged his companions forward.

One by one, they shook me firmly by the hand.

Calum Stewart, a big, shy man with a bright red face. Lachlan MacLeod, dark and lean, with a grip like steel. Donald Alec MacDonald, another big man with piercing grey eyes. Iain Ban MacDonald, the tallest of them all, his cap perched on top of a mop of fair hair. Roderick MacPherson, a small dark man with twinkling eyes, who said, “Don’t be after thinking the
bodach
is the only one with the Gaelic, Alasdair.
Failte do’n duthaich
. Welcome to the country, boy.”

They stood around me, smiling and joking, and teasing Mairi in the Gaelic judging from her blushes and giggles.

All the time, Murdo Beaton went on working steadily, never looking up.

It was only when Hector MacLeod turned to him, and said, “Murdo Ruadh, the peats can go to pot for a day. We must make a ceilidh with Alasdair Beag,” that he straightened up.

His small, pale eyes flickered over the group, lighting on me for a second and then moving away again.

“You are welcome to take the boy,” he said in a flat, expressionless voice. “It is his own doing that he is working at all. But myself is for
lifting these peats, and lift them I will.”

I did not want to leave Mairi to carry on unaided, and I protested that I must finish the work, but they pooh-poohed the idea.

Hector MacLeod seized my arm in his.

“Man alive,” he cried, “what would your father be saying if we did not make a ceilidh this day?” and they marched me off across the bog, not heeding my protests.

We were clambering over the fence, when Hector MacLeod said, “And how do you like this place, eh?”

I saw his shrewd blue eyes on my face.

“Fine,” I said.

He laughed and slapped his thigh, and turned to Calum Stewart who was on my other side.

“The boy is a Cameron, right enough,” he declared. “I mind the day we took Alasdair Dubh to Glasgow. He was only twelve at the time and we took him on the trams and the buses and fed him ice-cream and took him out at night to see the lights of the city. When we got back home we took him to his father, and his father asked him what he thought of the big city. Well I mind the day. We sat round in a circle waiting for him to speak about the wonders of the city. And all he said was ‘Fine.’”

He laughed again, and Calum Stewart smiled a friendly smile.

We made straight for the house on the croft adjoining my own. It was a big stone house with a slated roof.

Hector MacLeod led the way into the kitchen, shouting “Peigi! Morag!”

A plump, smiling woman with gleaming black hair coiled in a bun on the back of her head came into the room, followed by a younger woman.

“This is my wife, Peigi,” said Hector MacLeod, “a grand woman with a girdle-pan, but an awful blether forby.”

“
Ist, ist
,” said his wife.

She shook hands warmly with me, and said, “Never you mind the
bodach
, Alasdair. “Tis himself is the blether. We are right pleased to have you with us.”

Her daughter Morag shook hands with me smiling, and I was made to sit on a chair in front of the fire. Hector MacLeod leaned back in an old rocking-chair and the men sat on the long wooden bench behind me.

The kitchen was big and airy. The walls were lined with tongued and grooved boarding painted cream and the floor was covered with linoleum. An old brown dresser stood against the wall, opposite the window, and the sunlight glinted on its sparkling delf. There was an easy chair on one side of the gleaming black range and a table under the window.

The men lighted their pipes, and Iain Ban MacDonald said, “Surely you never came all the way from London by yourself, Alasdair?”

I liked the easy way they used my name, as if they had known me all my life.

“My mother took me to Glasgow, but I came on from there by myself,” I said.

“Well, well,” exclaimed Calum Stewart, between draws on his pipe. “You are a hardy.”

“How is your mother?” asked Lachlan MacLeod. “Fine I remember her, although it must be all of ten years since she was in this place.”

“She’s well,” I said, thinking how pleased she would be to know that this dark silent man had remembered her.

Roderick MacPherson said, “I saw you at the peats yesterday. I am thinking it is your back would be knowing all about it before the day was done.”

“I was a bit stiff,” I admitted ruefully. “But I’m better today.”

“You did too much altogether,” declared Calum Stewart. “You will be after  killing yourself.”

“Or I will be after killing the Red One,” said Donald Alec MacDonald quietly.

I looked at him quickly but there was no laughter in his piercing grey eyes and nobody laughed.

Hector MacLeod frowned and flashed him a warning glance.
There was an awkward silence and suddenly everyone started talking at once. I had the feeling that they were too polite to embarrass me by dwelling on Murdo Beaton, but it was plain to see that he was not welcome in Achmore.

Mrs MacLeod and Morag spread a spotless white cloth on the table, and amid much good-humoured banter, we all sat in to tea.

Hector MacLeod presided at the head of the table, throwing out a word here and there whenever the conversation showed signs of flagging, and nodding his white head appreciatively at the best of the sallies. I noticed how cunningly he drew everybody into the talk, and they all had something to say except Lachlan MacLeod. That dark, silent man never spoke a single word, but his was a friendly silence, broken by his slow smile and the warmth of his eyes.

I had never before talked to men like these. They treated me as an equal and listened to me as attentively as they did to white-haired Hector MacLeod. I remembered Aunt Evelyn’s scathing, “Small boys should be seen and not heard,” whenever I offended her by speaking out of turn. There was none of that in Hector MacLeod’s kitchen. Indeed I was encouraged to speak, when I would have preferred to sit quietly listening to the men.

It was after tea, and the women were clearing away the dishes, when Hector MacLeod said, “Duncan Mòr should be here this night.”

“Aye, right enough,” they all echoed. “Duncan Mòr should be here.”

“Who is Duncan Mòr?” I asked.

They all looked at Hector MacLeod and he rocked back in his chair and drew thoughtfully on his pipe before replying.

“Duncan Mòr was your father’s best friend,” he said slowly. “They were aye together, the pair o’ them, although Duncan was a wheen older than your father. They were the biggest men in a township o’ big men, and Duncan Mòr stood a full head taller than your father.

“He was the first mate on the
Empire Rose
and a sorry man, I’m thinking, that he did not go down with Alasdair Dubh. Ach well, that’s the way o’ the world.”

He sighed heavily and drew on his pipe.

“How did it happen!” I asked eagerly. “How was he saved?”

“The
Empire Rose
was well out in the Atlantic and a dirty sou’wester was blowing up. It was New Year’s Day. The torpedo caught her amidships and she settled quickly in the stern listing hard to port. They couldn’t clear the starboard boats at all. Duncan Mòr was ordered to take the first boat and they managed away right enough. Your father’s boat never got clear. It capsized and they were all lost.”

“It was a bad day for us when the
Empire Rose
went down,” said Donald Alec MacDonald, “but I doubt no man felt it as bad as Duncan Mòr,
an duine bochd
.”

“Where does he stay?” I asked.

“He has a croft by the river at Mealt,” replied Hector MacLeod. “Mind you, boy, the same man would have been over to see you this while back if himself had been free to call.”

“But he must know I would want to see him,” I said.

“Oh, he would know, right enough,” acknowledged Hector MacLeod. He hesitated, leaning forward and tapping out the bowl of his pipe into the fire. I could see he was debating with himself, and suddenly he burst out, “Ach, why should I be quiet. You will find out for yourself soon enough. There is bad blood, boy, between Duncan Mòr and the Red Fellow.”

The laughter had died from the room, and the atmosphere had become strained. I was going to say something when Hector MacLeod said quickly, “Did you ever hear a
port-a-beul
, Alasdair?”

“No,” I said, wondering what it could be.

“Come on, Ruairidh,” they all cried, and I had the feeling they were glad of something to distract my attention from Murdo Beaton.

Roderick MacPherson sang a
port-a-beul,
the old mouth music.

He sang it at great speed, his feet tapping out the rhythm, and his hands slapping down on his thighs. It must have been very funny, apart from the comical faces he made, for the men kept breaking out in great gusts of laughter. Hector MacLeod had to cry. “
Ist! Ist!
” to quieten them.

When it was over, we all clapped loudly, and Roderick sang another
port-a-beul
. It was even faster than the first, and such was the lilt in the air that Iain Ban sprang to his feet and danced a wild reel round the kitchen. He collapsed on the bench, laughing and panting, and Hector MacLeod wiped his eyes, and cried, “Good for you, boys!”

There were more jokes and laughter and happy talk, and I did not feel the time passing at all. But the men exclaimed that the cows would not wait milking any longer and said they must go.

They clustered at the door, saying how much they had enjoyed the ceilidh.

Roderick MacPherson’s twinkling eyes met mine, and he smiled and said, “We will take you fishing tomorrow night, Alasdair, so don’t be killing yourself at the peats.”

Then they were gone, clattering across the lobby in their heavy boots and calling, “
Oidhche mhath,
Alasdair,
oidhche mhath,
Eachann.”

Hector MacLeod walked with me to the edge of his croft, and stood for a while in silence with his hand on my shoulder.

His last words were, “Don’t be making a stranger of yourself, Alasdair. You will always find an open door in this place.”

I crossed the drain and walked slowly towards the thatched cottage. It was after eleven o’clock but the brief Hebridean night had not yet fallen. I did not even glance up at the dark peak of the Hill of the Red Fox for my mind was full of my new-found friends.

Murdo Beaton was alone in the kitchen, looking at a newspaper. It was folded into a small square, and he held it at arm’s length, squinting at it longsightedly, the way men do who are not accustomed to reading.

“It is time you were in bed, boy,” he said briefly, glancing up at me.

I stood inside the door, and he turned again to the newspaper in his hand.

“Well, good night,” I ventured.

He did not speak or look up, so perhaps he had not heard me. I
closed the door quietly and went to bed.

I woke up in the night knowing dimly that something had disturbed me. The luminous hands on the dial of my watch pointed to two o’clock. I lay quite still, listening intently, and I heard the murmur of men’s voices. The sound seemed to be coming from the direction of my window and I realized they must be standing outside the door of the cottage.

Some time passed before I grasped the fact that they were speaking English, and I listened with renewed interest, for I knew that the men of the township spoke Gaelic amongst themselves. I caught the words
lochailort
and
silenced
and
midnight Saturday
before the voices faded and were still.

There was the sound of a door scraping shut. Then silence. Then stealthy footsteps slowly approaching my room. I lay perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe, but the footsteps stopped outside my door. There was a silence in which every sound of the night became magnified a hundredfold. I heard every rustle of the wind in the rowan trees outside the house, and the scurrying run of a mouse across the floor, before the footsteps retreated from my door. I heard the creak of the kitchen door and then silence again.