Lightly Poached (3 page)

‘Aye so,' concurred Flora and she might just as well have said ‘Amen'.

I did not need to express an opinion, having lived long enough in Bruach to accept that poaching was not just a means of obtaining trout or salmon for a tasty meal but a daring and exciting pastime. To outwit the watchers or evade the police was a game as compulsive as betting or gambling might be to a townsman, with the added attraction that it yielded a repertoire of adventure and escape stories for the participants to narrate at winter ceilidhs. Nearly every able-bodied male in the village, whatever his occupation, poached or had poached at some time or another. Even the salmon watchers were reputed to engage in a little poaching when they were not on duty.

Sure of his audience's wholehearted support Erchy became expansive. ‘Indeed I mind the old laird askin' me to poach his salmon for him more than once,' he told us.

‘Go on!' taunted Flora.

‘Damty sure he did. I was doin' watchin' for him then an' he was expectin' this house party to come an' wanted salmon for their dinner. He was up at the loch all day an' didn't get a bite so he comes to me an' he says will I put my net in the river that night an' make sure there'd be one or two nice fish for them.'

‘An' you made sure,' put in Morag with a reminiscent smile.

‘Aye, we got near a dozen so we picked out all the ones that had the marks of the net on them an' sent them up to the laird's house. The rest we kept for ourselves.'

‘That wasn't right at all,' Morag chided him.

‘Ach, the cook got a hold of then an' had them prepared before the guests could put an eye to them but the next time the laird asks me to poach a few for him he says, “An' mind you, Erchy, make sure there's no net marks on them this time. I cannot rely on this cook to make such a good job of them.”

‘Is it true?' demanded Flora.

‘As true as I'm here,' averred Erchy.

Flora shook her head. ‘Yon's a mon, yon.'

‘These are no' very fresh,' Morag declared, leaning over the boat and scraping at the scales adhering to the wood. ‘Would these be the minister's scales?'

Flora and I exchanged amused glances. ‘The minister's scales?' we said simultaneously.

‘What I was meanin' was were they the scales left from the night he had the minister out poachin'.' She laughed ‘The night Erchy spent in the gaol.'

‘Never surely!' breathed Flora.

‘Aye, we did,' Erchy confirmed. ‘Him as well.'

‘The minister?'

‘Aye.' Erchy nodded smugly. ‘An' it served him damty well right too.'

‘What happened?' I asked.

‘Well, you mind that Sassenach minister was over stayin' for a holiday last week?' I nodded.

‘Well him, it was. He mentioned more than once he'd like a nice salmon to take back with him so in the end I said I'd take him. We went to the river an' we'd got a couple of good salmon in the net when suddenly there's a shout an' a couple of pollis come out of the dark an' grab the net, salmon an' all. They couldn't see who we was an' I got away out of it quick but this daft minister shouts, “No, Erchy, it's no use. We're caught red-handed.” God! I was that mad I could have hit him. If he'd had any sense he would have followed me an' they'd never have been able to prove it was our net. We could always have said we'd just noticed it there an' were havin' a look.'

‘You'd have lost your net,' I pointed out.

‘We could have got a new bit of net for the price of the fine,' returned Erchy.

‘So they put you in gaol,' I sympathised.

‘Aye, well, that fellow wouldn't be satisfied. “We must plead guilty, Erchy,” he says to me. “No damty fear,” says I “They've no proof, I tell you.” “But, Erchy,” says he, “if there's a case about it my name will be in the papers an' what will my congregation think if they see their minister's been caught poachin'?”

The man was right,' interrupted Morag. ‘He has to think of his congregation.'

‘Right for himself maybe but ministers should think about others as well,' returned Erchy. ‘If he was goin' to plead guilty then I had to as well.'

‘What difference does it make pleading guilty?' I enquired innocently.

‘If you plead guilty you just spend the night in the cell an' in the mornin' you pay your fine an' get out an' nobody much the wiser,' he explained.

‘So that's what they did. An' the minister didn't get his salmon to take back with him,' Morag said.

‘No, but he had the cheek of the devil, that fellow,' Erchy disclosed. ‘When the copper came to the cell the next mornin' he was mighty pleased with himself at havin' got the pair of us an' the two salmon as evidence. Oh, he was smilin' an' tellin' us it was a nice day, an' then he says, “What would you like for your breakfast, gentlemen?” as if it was a hotel we was stayin' at.

‘ “I fancy some bacon an' eggs,” says I, thinkin' I'd be cheeky an' put them to as much trouble as I could.'

‘ “An' what about you, minister?” he says. An' that minister looks at him as cool as I don't know what an' he says, “Oh, don't go to any trouble for me, boys, just give me the same as you had yourselves—a plate of poached salmon”.

Flora and I dissolved into laughter.

‘We'd best be on our way,' said Morag. ‘Oidhche mhath!' she called.

Oidhche mhath!' responded Erchy. I had taken a couple of steps in the wake of Morag and Flora when I realised that Erchy's farewell had been spoken with his normal clarity and I realised suddenly that he was equipped with a full set of teeth.

‘Erchy!' I exclaimed, instantly recognising them as his own because of the broken eye tooth. ‘You've got your teeth back again!'

‘Aye, I have so,' he admitted.

‘You were lucky to find them, weren't you? Didn't you tell me you dropped them in the sea?'

‘I said I dropped them overboard,' corrected Erchy, and seeing my puzzled look elucidated: ‘I dropped them overboard in the river the other night when I was poachin' an' I was certain I'd never see them again, but, aye, I was lucky. Somebody did find them. They got them in their net.'

‘How extraordinary!' I said. ‘Who got them?'

‘I'm not sayin' who,' responded Erchy with an air of mystery, ‘but this mornin' who should be at the door but the pollis an' when I asked him what he wanted he pulled out this handkerchief an' there was my teeths wrapped in it. “I hear you lost your teeths, Erchy,” says he. “Well, I did so,” says I. “I'm wonderin' if these are yours?” asks the pollis. Well, I knew fine anybody would know they're my teeths so I says, “Aye, they're mine, right enough.” '

‘But who would take them to the police?' I asked. ‘Surely it would be tantamount to admitting they'd been poaching?'

‘Who would take them to the pollis?' returned Erchy derisively. ‘When I'm damty sure everyone in the village knew they was mine?'

‘You mean …' I began and then paused as the full import of his words dawned slowly upon me. ‘You mean the policeman himself was doing a spot of poaching and he caught them in his net?'

Erchy fixed me with an uncompromising stare. ‘Now what damty fool would be askin' the pollis a question like that?' he demanded.

Erchy's mother and I met down by the burn where I had been looking for watercress and when I had first spotted her standing barefoot in the peaty brown pool below the waterfall I stood captivated by the picture she made. With sleeves rolled elbow high and skirts, tucked well above the knees she was carefully positioning two empty herring barrels beneath a craggy rock over which a truant rivulet of sparkling water poured gently enough to fill the barrels without risk of bursting them. Satisfied at last she waded about in the pool, selecting boulders to buttress the barrels until finally, after a push or two to assure herself of their rigidity, she waded back to the bank where she stood for a moment assessing her handiwork while she shook stray drops of water from her cotton bonnet. I marvelled at her toughness. Erchy's mother was ‘Seventy past'; I knew from experience how bitingly cold the water in the pool felt to bare feet even in midsummer and guessed she had been enduring it for at least ten minutes. I continued watching while she sat on the heathery bank, drying her feet on her long skirts, pulling on a pair of thick black woollen stockings to just above the knee and finally lacing up her sturdy ‘tackety' boots. Not until then did I make my presence known.

‘He Breeah!'

‘He Breeah!' She struggled up. ‘Were you here long?'

‘Oh, no,' I lied, fearing to embarrass her. ‘I've just been making my way along the burn.' I showed her my few sprigs of watercress.

‘Ach, the biolaire, as we have it in the Gaelic,' she commented and with a smile added, ‘that's food for the wee folk.'

‘I've heard that.' I returned her smile.

‘Aye, there's some folks hereabouts who'll swear to seein' a wee mannie gatherin' it late at night but only the Dear knows whether or not they were tellin' the truth.'

‘I'm very fond of it.' I told her.

‘Aye, an' so were some of the laird's folk in my mother's day, I mind her tellin' me. But she had no likin' for it herself an' I daresay that's why I've never taken to it.' She tucked stray wisps of white hair into her bonnet and tied the strings under her chin. Waking or sleeping Erchy's mother rarely left her head uncovered. Most of the year she wore knitted woollen helmets but on hot summer days it was always the old-fashioned but extremely becoming cotton bonnet.

‘Seein' you're here you'll came an' take a wee strupach with me,' she informed me. ‘It's an awful whiley since you were in my house.'

Already I had been out longer than I had intended but to have refused her invitation would have disconcerted us both. She turned to take a last glance at the two barrels now full and overflowing.

‘How long will you leave them there?' I asked.

‘Till Friday maybe,' she replied.

It was now Tuesday and I estimated that three full days under the waterfall would have cleaned the barrels better than any amount of scrubbing or scouring. To Bruachites whose homes were nearby the bum became merely an extension of their kitchens. There on the bank, supported by a couple of fire-blackened rocks and permanently in residence, Erchy's mother kept a large iron washing pot in which she boiled her linen, rinsing it afterwards in the fast-flowing burn; it was in the bum she did her annual blanket washing prior to draping them over high clumps of heather to dry in the sun. There she cleaned the insides of the sheep they killed each autumn and there she washed the meal-coated bowls and basins when she had finished baking.

As we drew near the cottage she shielded her eyes from the sun. ‘There's the men busy at their bottoms,' she observed.

At the gable end of the house Erchy was thrusting a rusty gap-toothed saw through a plank of driftwood with the object of cutting it into lengths suitable for bottoms for lobster creels. The saw scrunched and jammed, scrunched and jammed again and again and Erchy swore and jounced, swore and jounced in retaliation. Nearby crouched Hector, chewing at a stalk of grass and watching the proceedings with cursory interest.

‘I'm after tellin' Erchy he needs to take tsat saw to see a dentist,' he quipped as we paused to watch.

The saw, Erchy and his profanity jerked to a stop as he looked up. His face was red as a radish with exertion and a large bead of sweat dropped from his upper lip as he nodded acknowledgment of our presence.

‘Indeed I'm thinkin' I could chew through it faster,' he confessed, dragging a tired arm across his glistening brow and giving the saw a long look of disgust. It was rare to see a well-kept tool in Bruach and it struck me that Erchy might have sawn wood more efficiently with a curry comb.

‘It wouldn't be so bad if that bugger would take his turn at it.' Erchy nodded cheerfully at Hector.

‘Ach, I'm no good wiss a saw,' Hector disclaimed hastily and giving Erchy a respectful look went on: ‘Erchy's tsat good at it I believe if he had a mind he could make coffins as good as any undertaker.'

‘I'll make one for you,' retorted Erchy searingly. ‘An' I'll make it good an' strong. That's one job you won't wriggle out of.'

Hector smiled imperturbably. He turned to me. ‘Me an' Erchy has a mind to go to Rhuna tsis evenin',' he disclosed. ‘She'll stay calm enough, I reckon.' He stared with indolent optimism at the sunlit sea, frisked into sharp-edged ripples by a tease of afternoon breeze.

Erchy's mother turned on her son with mock indignation. ‘How can you be goin' away to Rhuna when only this mornin' you were say in' you hadn't the time to take from makin' the creels to bring home a load of peats just.'

‘An' isn't it for the sake of the creels we have to go to Rhuna?' he exclaimed, glancing quickly at Hector, inviting endorsement of his statement. Hector's wide-eyed assent was very convincing.

‘Ach!' The old woman's tone was explicit.

‘It's true,' Erchy insisted. ‘We need to go an' gather up the hazels we cut earlier this year. You canna make creels without hazels any more than you can make bannocks without meal.'

‘I can see I'll be needin' to take home the peats myself, then,' his mother said with pretended resignation as she flexed her shoulders proudly.

‘Aye, you will so,' agreed her son.

It seemed never to have occurred to Erchy and it would have been cruel to suggest to his mother that she was now too old to carry home heavy creels of peat from the moors. She had carried them since childhood and through the years her back had shaped itself to take the half-hundredweight or so of the loaded creels. Like her contemporaries she would continue to do so, insisting that stiff fingers could still grasp peats and a back rigid with rheumatism was still sound enough for burdens. Not until the day came when with only a token load of peats and making frequent stops for rest she found herself too breathless to totter to and from the moors would she give in. With a grunt that was acceptance of her son's remark and a warm ‘thig a's Tigh' to me she made for the cottage. However, I hung back for a moment.