Lightly Poached (12 page)

I awoke with the first flurry of wind around the house and lay drowsily listening and wondering if this was just an exploratory thrust of a breeze attendant upon the turn of the tide or whether it was in the nature of a rehearsal for a gale which, gaining proficiency, would stampede the calm spell that had been lulling us during the past few days. The flurry died briefly then came again, still indecisive. I tried to guess at the time. It had been day bright when I had gone to bed at my usual time and it was day bright now and I felt as if I had slept no more than an hour. I gave up guessing and stretched out an arm to pick up the alarm clock. It was a crippled clock; both its feet had gone so that it had to He prone and the minute hand had broken off, but as nearly all Bruach clocks were either crippled or wildly eccentric I saw no reason to waste money on a new one. Except for the postmistress, the schoolteacher and the bus driver ‘mechanical time' was of little importance. In winter, day began with the very first glimmer of light which told the mothers of school-age children that there was time only for them to make a quick bowl of brose and murmur a bible reading before rushing the children off to school. It told the rest of us that though there might be time for a more leisurely breakfast this must be followed by a few brief hours crammed with disciplined comings and goings; carrying hay for the outwintered cattle; milking; mucking out and renewing bedding; bringing water from the well and peats from the stack; feeding hens, and yet more hay carrying until it was dark and we could recuperate with a long evening beside the fire until one decided for oneself that it was time for the day to end. During the spring and early summer when nights were transient enough to pass almost unnoticed the working day was not so easily definable. The children took their cue for school by the smoke which appeared from the schoolhouse chimney (the peat fire burned all the year round) and their mothers knew it was time to put on the potatoes for the evening meal when the returning scholars were sighted climbing the homeward path, but though these two daily events served as useful reminders to the rest of us no one appeared to notice the lack of them when the school was closed for the holidays. We would say, ‘It is time to milk the cows', or, ‘It is time to feed the hens', or, ‘It is time to take my dinner', and even I, novice that I was, rarely glanced at a clock for guidance. Time became instinctive: a sense that developed with the constant observation of the sky and sun shadows and the behaviour of animals and birds whose promptings were less arbitrary and more reliable than clocks and watches.

Confused now by sleep I stared at the clock. The hour hand had crept fractionally past four showing me that it was some three hours before my usual waking time. My body felt as if it was roped to the bed with the need for sleep but nevertheless I continued listening, trying to gauge the strength of the wind and almost whimpering a prayer that it would die away for just three or four hours so that I could finish my rest when, I promised, it could blow for weeks and I should not grumble. Since coming to live in Bruach I had found I was inclined to sleep less deeply on nights of calm and quiet than on nights of bustling storm, wind and rain being the characteristic pattern of our weather and calm spells merely an interruption. Like everyone else I rejoiced in the respite from the interminable battles with the wind but I was conscious that if they lasted more than a day or two they became seductive, luring me into negligence. Perhaps into leaving an empty wheelbarrow out on the croft; into forgetting a feeding bowl or some. garden tool that a strong gust could snatch up and hurl against a window; into omitting the extra tie on a barn door which, if the door were blown open, could result in the loss of the roof and though I might go to bed happily exhausted by all the extra work the calm spell had enabled me to accomplish there was always this subconscious awareness of more elementary chores neglected so that I was inclined to sleep fitfully, one ear alert for the first threatening rushes of a rising wind.

The flurries were undoubtedly gaining strength, punching at the windows and the roof. A pail rattled over the cobblestones and a tub went bumping after it reminding me of yesterday's big wash of sheets still on the clothes-line I jumped out of bed and slid into some clothes. As soon as I opened the door I could hear the noise of the sheets cracking like whips as they streamed in the wind and I hastened to rescue them. Some of the pegs had gone and the hems were already beginning to fray with long cottons plagued into tangles but I was relieved to see they were still whole. Once before when I had been slow to take in sheets left out in a gale I had found only the top hems still pegged to the clothes-line; the rest were white remnants clinging to clumps of spiky heather and decorating the barbed wire and netting fence around the haystack. At that time it had been a near disaster since my linen cupboard was not well stocked and I was expecting a succession of visitors. My only recourse had been to buy sheets from ‘Aberdeen Angus', the cheerful Asian tinker, whose entire stock I discovered to have become stained along the folds with a most persistent brown dye which had leaked from the cheap and inevitably sodden portmanteaus in which he always carried round his wares.

As soon as I grasped the sheets the remaining pegs flew out and I fought the wind for possession of my” bundle, crashing it against me as I trotted back to the house. Dumping it on the table I sped back to the croft, retrieving anything that might be blown away: a bundle of potato sacks washed in the burn and left to dry on the stone dyke; odd pieces of driftwood; a half-gallon tin of paint which I had been using to paint the barn door; a shovel; a broom, and a couple of pails. Even a creel of peats had to be taken to the safety of the shed since it had already been nudged over and some of the peats scattered thus making the creel light enough to be tumbled about and perhaps become airborne should the wind increase to a gale. Satisfied at last I returned to the cottage and while I folded the sheets, cool and fresh-smelling as the dawn wind itself, I debated whether it was worth while going back to bed. My sorties into the brisk morning had driven away the yearning for sleep and I wondered whether after a quick cup of coffee I should turn my back on work and make the most of the enforced early rising by indulging in what I liked to call a ‘wild wander'. Several times during the kindlier months of the year I liked to make these early-morning expeditions either along the shore or over the moors before there was much risk of other people being about and rarely did I return without the reward of having glimpsed some shy, wild creature or witnessed a thrilling example of animal behaviour the memory of which I knew would remain with me for the rest of my life. I had seen the elusive wild cat slinking among the bracken; I had observed at close quarters a family of otters playing like puppies at the mouth of a cave until, presumably winding me, they slid lithe as snakes across the rocks and into the sea. I had come at low tide within forty yards of a party of seals, lying out on the rocks and rolling and flopping their great bodies into first one position and then another while they expressed their satisfaction or otherwise by noises that were half belches, half groans. I had been puzzled by a gathering of weasels, I counted seven in all, which appeared to be playing a game of ‘In and out of the bluebells' on a mossy bank near the shore, and I had watched enchanted while a magnificent stag had led his party of hinds across a swollen burn, turning every now and then it seemed to reassure the more apprehensive among them. At almost any time there was a variety of wild life to be observed in and around Bruach but in the early mornings when it felt as if the day itself had only just begun to breathe there was more chance of surprising the more wily or more timid creatures which, once discerning the slightest stir of human activity, speedily retreated to the security of the hills or took refuge on unscaleable cliffs. Admittedly there were mornings when I saw nothing more unusual than a stag silhouetted against the skyline; a buzzard swooping on a rabbit, or a patient heron being attacked by a couple of gulls which coveted his fresh-caught breakfast, but no matter how common the sight for me the wonder

and the rapture were always there. I had come straight to Bruach from the town and though the ensuing years had moulded me into a countrywoman they had not lessened my excitement on seeing creatures of the wild. So far as they were concerned I knew I should remain in a perpetual state of wonder.

I opened the door and studied the great soft clouds that were moving serenely across the sky to join those already in ambush behind the hills. With this wind I should have expected them to be racing across the sky and I seemed to recollect that according to Bruach weather lore when there was ‘more wind low than high' it was a sign that the wind would not last long. The morning was inviting. I made my cup of coffee and refused to think of work. As yet I could see no threat of rain in the sky but all the same I pulled on an oilskin, tied it round my waist with a length of rope and pushed a sou'wester into the pocket. In Bruach it was usually raining, had just ceased raining or was threatening to rain so it was as well to be prepared. In any case there was nothing so good as an oilskin for defence against the wind. Discarding my heavy workaday gumboots I slipped into a pair of shiny, thin-soled rubber boots, bought in an English town and kept exclusively for ‘wild wanders'. Ordinary gumboots had to be heavyweight to withstand the rough stony ground and had to be several sizes too big to allow for heavy socks in winter which resulted in their clumping noisily as one walked, warning anything within a hundred yards of one's approach, but these lightweight boots, though I could feel every pebble through the thin soles, were excellent in that they kept my feet dry and yet trod as quietly as a pair of tennis pumps. Slinging my binoculars round my neck I closed the door and stood once more to assess the weather and decide which way I should go. The tide was well in and throwing great plumes of spray, wetter than any rain, over the shore so I made for the moors. As I passed the hen-run the hens came racing towards me with an expectancy that changed to puzzled murmurings as I ignored them. A feed at this hour of the morning would have upset their routine and might have affected their egg-laying. They would have to wait until I returned in about three hours' time. Crossing the stepping stones of the burn I climbed into the wind and followed one of the sheep-tracks that would take me around the shoulder of the hill and eventually into a small corrie where I could peer down into a vast chasm of tumbled rocks, reputed to be a favourite haunt of hill foxes. In all my years in Bruach I had never glimpsed a hill fox yet I was constantly hearing the shepherd grumbling at the number of sheep they took and hearing the gamekeeper boast of the number he had shot. The shepherd claimed that hill foxes were far wilier than other foxes and described almost with admiration how one of them had got the better of him at lambing time. The shepherd had gone to check up on his ewes and found one in a sheltered corrie all by herself with newly born twin lambs. He noticed that the ewe seemed agitated and looking round for the reason soon spotted the fox stealing towards her. The ewe turned to face her enemy, backing away and trying to keep her lambs behind her but it was obvious that one of the lambs was much weaker than the other. Before the shepherd could get near enough to do anything about it the fox had nipped in and taken the weaker lamb. The shepherd scrambled quickly down into the corrie, throwing stones and shouting at the fox until it dropped its catch and made off, but he was too late. When he reached the lamb it was already dead. Just as he made his discovery he heard a sharp bleat from the ewe and turning round was in time to see the same fox slinking rapidly out of sight with the remaining lamb in its jaws. It had merely circled the corrie and while his back was turned had swiftly taken the other lamb. ‘If only,' the shephered chided himself. ‘I‘d had the sense to let it get away with the weaker lamb I would have been able to get the strong one to safety, but ach, he was just too clever for me I doubt.'

The shepherd told too of his experience with an old dog fox. He had been out on the hills one day looking for white heather for some friends of his and feeling rather warm he took off his jacket and left it on a small knoll while he made his way down to the bum for a drink. Having refreshed himself he was about to retrace his path to the knoll when up he saw the old dog fox was there pawing at something. Realising it was his own jacket he shouted and waved his arms at the fox trying to scare it off but the animal only looked at him before resuming his attack on the jacket, pulling it about the knoll until the shepherd was afraid it would be torn. He hurried forward to rescue it and just as he reached the knoll he saw the fox extract a bar of chocolate from one of the pockets. It gave him another leisurely look before loping away with the chocolate still held in its mouth. ‘The look that beast gave me as it went off with my chocolate was kind of uncanny,' he used to add when he told the story.

For another mile or so I trudged on, disturbing nothing more exciting than a flock of drowsy sheep and a trio of hill ponies contentedly grazing the short grass while the wind combed their long manes. The ponies pranced away, full of summer energy and sweet mountain grass. It was while I was negotiating a skintight little path between two bastions of cliff which led to a miniature plateau that I came upon the wild goats. Several times previously I had glimpsed the goats but never at such close quarters and from the concealment of the cliffs I was able to observe them without their seeing me. The herd was clustered around the entrance to a cave, the old grey billy to the fore but still fast asleep lying half curled with his nose resting on his flank like a dog. Behind him two young nannies stood steadily cudding and staring out at the sea with tranquil yellow eyes. Behind them again three more elderly nannies lay with the relaxed air of those who are enjoying a morning lie-in while two leggy kids sniffed at each other's ears and seemed to be consulting with each other as to whether they should lie down again with their elders or begin the day's gambolling.