Twelve Great Black Cats (15 page)

Now as it happened the farmer at the croft had died that selfsame day. An old man, he'd been, who'd lived his time out and made money hand over hand, through all his years. His oldest son and his wife and all his other sons and daughters lived with him on the croft, so he had never had need of hiring other help. The work was divided among all of them, and it must be admitted that the old man did his share. The croft prospered and they all had what they needed of food and clothing, and were comfortable enough. The trouble was that the old man did all the buying and selling himself, and in all the years of their lives not one of them had ever seen so much as a penny of the old man's gold. They knew he brought money into the house, for droves of sheep and herds of cattle and great loads of farm stuff had been sold through the years, but what he had done with the money paid to him for them not a soul among his family could guess.

It was just a week before that the old man had taken to his bed and told them he'd a mind to die, and in the days since then his sons and daughters had all but torn the house to pieces seeking without success for the gold he had hidden away. When they had seen that morning that he would not last the day, they had filled the final hours of his life trying with all their might to persuade him to tell where he had hidden his hoard. But he only grinned at them and refused to tell them anything at all.

Now there was an old belief among the folk in those parts that if a stranger watched beside a dead person, leaving the door ajar, the dead man would rise from his bed in the middle of the night and answer any question he had been asked while he was lying there. When they saw the lass walking up the lane toward the house, the oldest son said to his wife, “Goodwife, here comes a stranger.”

“Aye,” said his wife. “A stranger. So it is.” Then they looked at each other knowingly, and at the old man's other sons and his daughters.

“Aye—a stranger,” they said. “So it is.” And without saying more they decided to induce the lass to watch that night beside the dead man.

Now the lass had never heard about this old belief. Folk in her own village knew naught about it or she'd have learned it long before. So she had no notion of what the folk at the croft were planning when she came up the lane to the house and knocked at the door.

“Who's there?” asked the oldest son, as he opened the door.

“A good serving maid seeking a place,” answered the lass.

“Och,” said the oldest son. “You've come to a house of grief, for our father died this morning, and all of us are worn out with caring for him, for he's been ill for a week.” Then the son asked her a few questions, and by her answers he soon knew that she had heard naught of the old belief. So he said, “Well, we're in no need of a serving maid for the croft, but would be willing to hire you to sit and watch by the dead man, so that we may catch a bit of sleep. I'll give you a piece of gold and a piece of silver for the watching tonight.”

A piece of gold and a piece of silver was better than nothing, thought the lass, though she had no idea that the dead man's son planned to pay her out of the gold and silver that the dead man had hidden, and which he, the son, could not put his hands on without her. She liked the thought of having a roof over her head, too, even if it did mean sitting up all night with a dead body. So she said she would do it, and they took her into the house. They set her supper before her, and when she had eaten they took her into the front room where the dead man lay. There was a fire burning in the grate and a comfortable chair beside it, facing toward the dead man.

“We'll just be going to bed early,” they told the lass, “being that tired out with nursing our poor father here.” So they made ready to leave her, but first the oldest son and his wife and the other sons and daughters went over to the dead man, one by one, and whispered something as they bent over him. The lass could not hear the words but she took no interest in what they said.

“Och, the poor things are saying their prayers,” she said to herself.

But what they were saying to the dead man was, “Father, where did you lay away your gold?”

Then they all went up the stairs, but the oldest son, before he followed after them, slipped over behind the lass and set the outside door ajar.

The lass set her bundle down beside her, with her good stout blackthorn stick that her lover gave her resting against her knee for company.

The hours went by and she sat on, and now and then she found her head nodding, but she did not fall asleep. When midnight came she got up to mend the fire and that was when she heard a rustle behind her. She looked around and there was the dead man propping himself up on one elbow and giving her a horrible grin.

“Och, now! Lie down there, man, or I'll give you a whack you'll feel!” said she, picking up her stick and shaking it at him. Just then she felt a chilly draft from the half-open door, so she reached around and slammed it shut. When she looked toward the bed again the dead man was lying there, quiet and composed. “Och, it's dreaming I am,” said she, and made herself comfortable again beside the fire.

When the folk in the house came downstairs in the morning the oldest son came into the room.

“Did you hear aught in the night?” he asked.

“Nay,” said the lass. “All was quiet. Except for once when I felt a draft and pushed the door shut, so that it slammed. If it was that noise you were hearing, I made it myself.”

“Och, well, I see,” said the oldest son. “Will you watch again tonight? 'Twill be the last, since the burial is tomorrow. We'll pay you the same as before.”

“I'll not be minding,” answered the lass. “I'll watch again.” So she had breakfast and slept the whole day through until evening, when they woke her up.

She had her supper, and then she went back to the room where the dead man lay and made herself comfortable by the fire again, sitting with her good stout blackthorn stick that her lover gave her in her hand.

The oldest son and his wife and the other sons and daughters passed by the bed, one by one, and whispered to the dead man as they had the night before. “Father, where did you hide your money?” they whispered, but the lass heard not a word, nor did she try to hear.

Then they all went upstairs, the oldest son last of all, but this time when he set the door ajar he stuck a block of wood in the hinge so that the door could not be shut.

The lass sat by the fire and the hours seemed longer than they had the night before, but she took comfort from the thought that she would not have to watch another night. Then midnight came, and she heard the stirring of the covers on the bed. She looked, and there was the dead man, propped up on one elbow and giving her a horrible grin. The lass took her good stout blackthorn stick that her lover gave her in her hand and cried out, “Lie down there decently, man, or I'll give it to you good.”

Then she felt the cold draft from the open door and shaking her stick at the dead man, she pushed at the door to shut it, but that she could not do, for the block that the man's son had put in the hinge would not let it shut.

“The de'il take this door!” the lass cried in vexation. “Why will it not shut, the way it should!”

She turned back to the fire to warm herself, for a cold wind was blowing upon her, and then she saw the dead man leaping out of his bed and making for the open door. The lass caught up her good stout blackthorn stick that her lover gave her and off she went after the dead man. As he went out through the doorway she gave him a swinging blow with the stick on his backside and cried out, “Come away, man! Come back to your bed and lay yourself down like a decent body. 'Tis not seemly for you to go on this way, it is not indeed!”

But the dead man reached around him and caught the stick by its end and held it fast. She would not let go and he would not let go, so off they went together, both holding on to the stick for dear life, off and away over the countryside. Down the road they went for a mile or so, and then he turned aside and at top speed legged it over the moor. He led her a merry chase up hill and down dale, through heather and broom and bracken, through copse and underbrush, where the twigs of the bushes reached out like clutching hands to catch her by the hair and hold her back. The low branches of the trees slapped cruelly at her face as she and the dead man rushed by. The moon looked down and laughed to see the sport, and their shadows danced merrily before them in the moonlight as the two of them sped along. But she had no mind to lose her good stout blackthorn stick that her lover gave her, so she held fast and on they went until the dawn began to show signs of breaking. Then, in a trice, the dead man turned himself about and raced back the way he had come. Suddenly, they were at the house once again. They came through the door into the room, just as the cock in the rafters of the barn began to crow out the morn. Then the dead man let go of his end of the stick and going over to the bed lay down.

He fixed his staring eyes on the lass and finally said, “In the chimney under the thatch it is, and you'd not have known it, had you ever let go of the stick.” Then he shut his eyes and crossed his arms upon his breast and to look at him lying there so calm and peaceful, one would never have known he'd been out of his bed that night.

The lass, once she had got her breath again, tidied her hair and set her skirts to rights. She went to the door and found the block of wood stuck in the hinge. She took the block out and shut the door of the house and sat down in her chair by the fire, with her good stout blackthorn stick that her lover gave her at her knee, and waited for the folk in the house to wake up and come downstairs again.

The goodwife was the first one down, and when she saw the dead man lying quiet in his bed and the lass no less quiet in her chair, she began to weep and wail.

“Och,” she cried loudly. “The auld man's secret will go with him into his grave if he did not tell it to you last night, for we'll not have another chance to find out where his money is hidden since he'll be buried today.”

The lass turned her eyes from the fire and looked at the goodwife. She was a clever lass and could see how they had made use of her, without telling her what they were about. “Now hold your tongue!” she told the wife of the oldest son. “I've had the de'il of a time this night, all because of your auld man, but in the end he told his secret to me.”

Then she told the goodwife all that had happened between her and the dead man, but when she came to the part of her story about what the dead man had said to her, she held back and did not seem to want to tell.

“Och!” cried the oldest son's wife. “What an awkward piece you are! Tell me, lass, what did he say?”

“Och, well,” said the lass. “Somehow it goes against me to be repeating what he told me. After all, 'tis sure he wasn't wanting you to know or he'd have told you himself. No doubt you asked him about it while he was dying, the poor old creature.”

The sons and the daughters were all awake by now. With all the commotion in the house who could sleep? They all crowded into the room where the dead man lay and there was the goodwife cursing and coaxing the lass by turns. When they found out what the trouble was, they added their voices to hers, and such a to-do you never heard.

But the lass sat quietly in her chair all the while, as if she had not heard a word. All the answer they got from her did them little good.

“I'm thinking it over,” was all she'd say.

Then the oldest son of the family, himself having a bit more sense than the rest of them, shushed them all up and gathered them all into a far corner of the room where they whispered together for a while. Then the oldest son left them and came over to the lass and stood before her.

“Look ye now,” he said quietly to the lass. “My father loved his money more than anything or anyone else in the world when he was living. If he wanted to hide it from us then, we let him have his way, to be sure. But now that he's dead his gold is of no use to him for they'll not be letting him fetch it along with him where he's gone. All of us worked as hard as he did to help him pile it up. Should we not have the good of it now that he's dead and does not need it any more?”

But the lass only listened and said nothing.

“Come, now,” said the oldest son in a wheedling way. “You'll never be the worse off for telling us what the old man said. You shall have ten pieces of gold for every hundred the old man had, if you can tell us where he hid it away.”

“I'll have to think it over,” said the lass.

So they waited and waited while the lass was thinking it over, and a very long time went by. Then the lass said, “Write on a piece of paper what you have promised me, and give me the paper to hold. Happen I'll tell you what the poor old man said to me.”

So they wrote down on a piece of paper that the lass was to get ten pieces of gold for every hundred that the old man had laid away, and signed it with all their names. They gave it to the lass, and when she had put it safely in her pocket, she told them what they wanted to know.

“It's in the chimney under the thatch,” said she. “That's what the dead man said.”

Then they climbed up to the rafters, and hidden under the thatch they found a cupboard craftily built into the stones of the chimney. They opened the cupboard and on the shelves were bags and bags of gold that the old man had been hiding there for fifty years or more. They took it down and counted it out on the table, and out of every hundred pieces the lass got her ten. Since she had their promise in writing they could not very well give her less, nor would they have done so, being that thankful to her for finding out where it had been hidden. It made a good sum when it was all handed over to her, and after she'd counted it for herself to make sure she'd had her rights, she asked them for a bag to carry it home in, which they gave her willingly.