Tears for a Tinker (19 page)

‘It takes a certain kind of man, Jess, to leave his family and walk into the bosom of an ocean. You can be floating on a carpet of peaceful water one minute, and sinking fingers into wood
and metal the next as you hang on for grim death, while twenty-foot waves throw you in every direction. I’ve seen myself heaving a newly eaten meal over the side, as those born to the sea to
be fishermen laughed and played cards. I’m first to admit, it’s not for me. Give me a building site any day. Let’s go back to Perthshire. What do you say?’

I couldn’t say much, as my thoughts about leaving my parents and family left a cold unwelcome mind. I should have seen it coming, he’d been showing signs of unrest for several weeks,
always seeming preoccupied, unhappy with things. I thought it was a sore back I’d caused him by an over-zealous attempt to prove my love. I’d not lost much weight at the time, and ran
into his arms after a longer time than usual at sea. The poor lad went backwards like a ton of tatties, me on top of him. But it wasn’t that. No, in hindsight I think he needed to be back on
home soil.

Well, I won’t lie, there were very noisy arguments as I dug in my heels, adamant we were staying put, and he’d have to find another job here in Aberdeenshire, while he was determined
to go home. Mammy solved the problem by suggesting we go somewhere new, like Fife. Glenrothes, where Shirley lived, was doubling in size; there was lots of building work on offer, and whole
families were flooding the area.

I softened, as did he, and with everything packed up we said our goodbyes to everyone and left our wee low-roofed rented cottage for good.

I loved Macduff for many reasons. And like many places in my life little pieces of me remained there; Sarah for one, and Doctor Mackenzie another. It was there our son nearly died, and a
nearly-baby changed its mind about being a human and leaving my womb; it became just a few joined-up cells. Behind closed doors I brushed shoulders with the shadow world. A ruddy-faced harbour
chappie told me I had a weight problem, cutting me off forever from polony suppers. Oh aye, Macduff (which incidentally was Daddy’s pet name for Mammy) would not leave me, we were joined just
like Banff and Macduff with its bridge spanning the River Deveron.

So before we head to Glenrothes to take up residence with Shirley, here’s that story I promised you of a half-caste rogue, the fiddler McPherson.

Legend has it he was the illegitimate son of a Highland gentleman and a gypsy girl. It may have been because of his mother’s background that men of substance shunned him. Not many looked
on gypsies as anything other than human vermin. Unable to find acceptance in mainstream society, he turned to his mother’s people. There he could be a proud man, and grow strong in their
midst. Musicians abounded among the gypsies. He acquired a grand fiddle, and from his mother, a deep love and understanding of music. This should have been the reason for his name passing into
history, had it not been for a gang of cattle-lifters operating in the shire of Moray in the late seventeenth century.

Whether they were guilty mattered not—they were gypsies. On 7 November 1700, McPherson, along with a cousin of the name of Gordon, and a weak-minded lad called Brown, were brought before
the Sheriff of Banffshire to face numerous charges. ‘You are hereby charged with being “Egyptian” rogues and vagabonds, of keeping the markets in their ordinary manner of thieving
and purse-cutting, also being of masterful bangstrie [violence against a person or property] and oppression.’

The peculiar language spoken between the gypsies may well have helped seal their fate. It was mentioned, not in their favour, that their nights were spent in debauchery, dancing and singing.

Guilty verdicts were levelled at McPherson and Gordon. At the Market Cross in Banff, the next day, they kept their appointment with the hangman’s rope. There is a well attested story that
the Banff authorities, anticipating a royal pardon, hung them before the stated time of the execution. McPherson composed in his final hours his famous rant, the song which inspired Burns’
‘Farewell, ye Dungeons Dark and Strong’.

That was the traditional story that has been handed down.

But this one we now share has only been told round campfires by folks who swear it is the truth. I heard it myself one misty gloaming filled with the onset of night.

Once there was a handsome young gentleman who noticed, while out riding one fine day along the Moray coast, a vision of loveliness that stopped him dead in his tracks. So beautiful was the
dark-haired girl singing to the sea, that he felt compelled to dismount and watch her from behind a windswept tree. He sat down among dune grass, completely spellbound by her sultry beauty. She was
a shy songstress, and sang so bonny until her eye caught sight of him watching and listening. She smiled across on seeing him, waved her slender arm, rose, then ran off, and before he regained
composure had gone from his view. ‘Where did she go?’ he asked his bewildered steed, as if the horse would know.

Remounted, he galloped for miles along sand and rock, but she’d just disappeared, gone.

Night found him tossing restlessly in the feather-down bed he slept upon. ‘Sleep will’, he thought, ‘be an impossibility if I do not find the dusky maiden’.

This fine young man, heir to the estate of his father the Honourable James McPherson, had fallen in love at first sight. Next day, abandoning his usual duties, he set off once more in the hope
of catching a glimpse of the maiden. As luck would have it, she too was hoping to see him; and in the place where they’d first seen each other they met properly. ‘I am James,’ he
held out a hand.

‘And I am Mary-Ann Gordon,’ she told him, lowering velvet black eyelashes over smouldering brown eyes.

Sadly though, his dreams of courting this fine young maid and one day introducing her into his circle of family and friends were soon dashed, when he discovered she was a member of the Cave
Gypsies, those mysterious people associated with the lowest forms of existence. Certainly she was not the kind a gentleman of blue blood would be found near. Yet love is a taskmaster like no other,
and soon they were meeting in secret with a fondness growing stronger by the minute.

One day he decided she would be his wife, and no matter what the response a decision was made to tell his parents. Oh my, the wailing and beating of breasts that morning. His father hit him hard
across the face, while his mother begged that he forget the wench. There were others, far more suitable ladies, who’d give anything to be his bride. They pleaded that he give up the cave
dweller. It was a problem the McPherson family had never encountered before. James senior met with an old friend, the Laird o’ Grant, and asked what could be done.

‘There’s documents needing taken south to Edinburgh, send him there for a few months!’

So McPherson ordered his son to complete this task. He promised that when he came home, and if she was still on his mind, then he’d receive the blessing of his parents to court the gypsy
girl.

Happier now, with a clearer view of his future, James met his love on the windswept beach and relayed the news. They parted with a long and loving embrace. ‘I shall take ye tae be mine
when I come home, Mary-Ann, will ye wait on me?’

‘Aye, that I shall, my bonny laddie, but heed these words afore ye go. For three nights in a row, auld Michtie Jean has been wailing intae the night. She telt me she
saw my blood
running frae the gallows o’ the Merket Cross in Banff.
I havenae been able tae sleep fer worrying.’

‘Nobody will herm ye, lassie, and I’ll be back yince ma business is done. The Michtie wife is shrivelled wi’ gossip, and you’d dae weel no tae pay heed tae
her.’

She touched his lips, smiled, then with a nod of her head she disappeared along the cliff tops, wind blowing through her raven-black hair. She could have told him her news, but thought better of
it. If he came to her it had to be without compulsion; the baby shifting in her womb might have forced the young gentleman in him to do the proper thing. She didn’t want that: she wanted his
love for her, and not his heir.

Next day James set off for the capital, leaving her worried for his safety, while his family worried more about a bloodline staying intact.

When he was due back she had news: a son, a child from his loins. One who’d be brought up proud and strong? But weary is the heart that seeks and never finds, for poor young McPherson
never saw his boy. He fell as the victim of a raging storm which caused his horse to stumble, sending his body over a deep ravine to be shattered far below on jagged rock.

Mary Ann was destitute, heartbroken. It was almost as if they were never meant to be together. But mother and child needed protection, and it was her people who rallied to her, giving support
and security.

When word reached them that their son had fathered an only grandchild, the McPhersons tried to influence Mary-Ann into giving him to them. He would be brought up as a gentleman, even although
his blood was half-caste.

‘No,’ she screamed at old McPherson and Grant when they approached her cave north of Cullen, ‘I will feed and claithe my ain wean!’

Big burly men chased the pair away, and so it was that the young James McPherson was brought up by the Gypsies. His grandfather left the area after that. Some say he and his lady found shelter
with a cousin in England.

A fine fiddle was a gift to the boy from his beloved mother for his seventh birthday and he took to it like a natural: its music flowed from his expert hand.

He grew strong in the midst of wild pastures, with a fine physique that caught many a lassie’s twinkling eye. He’d be heard oft times under summer moonlit skies serenading a wench or
two on his violin.

‘Dark shadows hold evil eyes,’ announced auld Michtie Jean one night as she brushed against him on a cliff top. ‘Watch oot fer the black hert o’ Grant,’ was her
parting warning. He laughed and paid no heed to the back-bent old hag, who spent more time whistling among the wind and rocks after dark than she did in womanly duties during daylight hours. Yet it
would have been better had he heeded the old woman, because soon a braggart came among the quiet folk of the Moray country. And the one I speak of was related in some dubious way to Grant himself;
he was Donald by name. I say dubious, because rumours followed him from the Border country, where he had dealings with cattle reivers. He had blamed them for stealing a neighbour’s beasts,
whereas the truth was that it was he who had paid the thieves to carry out the dirty deed. On being discovered, he fled with his daughter to live under the protection of his kinsman, Grant.

The story went on that Mirrell, his daughter, was fond of visiting houses of ill repute. One night, in one of these ale-houses, ‘Maggie Mair’s Well Hole’, she heard McPherson
buskering. He was playing a kilt-rousing reel, which had a full house of revellers clapping hands and stomping feet. When she saw him, something stirred in her breast, her heart filled with desire.
‘Will you dance with me, handsome fiddler?’ she asked, tucking a handkerchief between her sweat-soaked bosoms and running her hand across his thighs. Embarrassment forced him to push
her hand away, while he still managed to hold his bow.

‘Take me home, handsome fiddler,’ she demanded, thinking a simple gypsy would rise to her command and do exactly as asked. But James was no ordinary beggar, and being his own man,
politely refused. Used to getting her own way, she stamped her foot down and again ordered him to see her safely home!

Unnerved by her manner, he stopped playing his fiddle, draped a tweed plaid over his shoulders, and disappeared into the night. He’d little time for women who drank alongside men,
half-clothed and loud-mouthed. On his way home, his cousin Gordon reminded him of who she was, adding, ‘best not to annoy the Grants, they have power tae hang every gypsy in Scotland if they
take it on themselves.’

James couldn’t have cared less, his love was his music. What harm could come to a musician?

Well, as it happened Grant had taken a grudge against a family of gypsy basket-weavers who’d taken up residence on the outskirts of Banff. One market day he whipped a half-wit boy who was
seen annoying his horse. A simple altercation between the boy’s father and Grant began a simmering hatred that would drive him to rid the county of all gypsies. Mishaps of little or no
criminal intent started to be used against them. If one lost something and didn’t find it, then a gypsy had stolen it. If a cow took sick, or dog or goat, then a gypsy curse was to blame.
Blue babies were the result of an ‘evil eye’. On and on flew the accusations. To avoid harm, many gypsy families left the area rather than face the gallows.

Mary Ann Gordon decided she and her son should uproot and go inland, where the peat moors would offer more in the way of a safe haven.

‘I’ll play ma fiddle, mither, in the Buckie Inn afore we gang awa. I hear tell it’s tae be full o’ fisherfolk; yin o’ them’s gittin merried.’

Strange, but at that precise minute his mother heard auld Michtie Jean whistling in the wind; it made hair rise at the base of her skull. She pulled a shawl over her head and begged him not to
go.

‘For why, mither? I’ll tak a few bawbees at a weddin’; surely ye ken hoo generous the fisherfolk are?’

‘Forget these people, Jamie. The Laird o’ Grant and his wicked friends are death-dealers. And there’s stories that yon Mirrell would pay money tae see ye pert wi’ yer
breeth fer spurnin’ her advances yon nicht in Maggie Mair’s Well Hole.’

‘Thon’s a spoilt lass, gi’en far too much her ain way as a bairn. I have nae fear o’ the likes o’ her. Some pair cratur will tak her fer a wife, and may the devil
be his uncle if he does.’

The sea splashing on seaweed-covered rocks, mingled with a far-off whistle of auld Michtie Jean, was all she heard as her Jamie set off to entertain the friendly fisherfolk.

Leopards don’t change spots, and so it was with Donald Grant, who had slipped back into his clandestine ways of cattle-lifting. He employed several wild men who were always happy to do his
bidding for a few pennies and a bellyful of drink. After all, what blame could be cast on them, when everybody knew it was gypsies who were the real culprits?