The Hills is Lonely (10 page)

‘It's funny Old Farquhar hasn't been near since Ian died,' said the sister who saw us to the door. ‘I don't believe he can have heard yet.'

Thus obliquely she suggested that we should take upon ourselves the task of acquainting Farquhar with the news of Ian's demise and, as the rain had stopped, bringing a bright starry sky with a full moon on the point of rising, we readily agreed.

Old Farquhar was the tatterdemalion of the village, who passed a hermit-like existence in a secluded little corrie a couple of miles away from the nearest habitation. I had seen him infrequently, and then always hurrying awkwardly in the opposite direction. I was hearing of him constantly, for in addition to his being something of a bard he was reputed to possess the ‘second sight', but I had not yet met him and, as his was a character obviously worth investigation, I was not averse to taking this opportunity of doing so.

To reach Farquhar's house we had to pass by the graveyard. The empty bus stood outside and we could not help being aware that somewhere beyond the trees an extremely merry party of grave-diggers were already engaged upon their task.

‘Dig first and drink after!' called Morag, with a hand cupped to her mouth; but there was no response and the sounds of merriment continued unabated.

Farquhar's cottage when we reached it appeared to be nothing more than a dilapidated barn, and, in spite of Morag's reiteration, I could not at first believe that it was actually occupied by a human being. It was stone built and thatched, but the latter was black with age and part of the house seemed to have fallen away altogether. A space in the wall which had at some time been a window was now partly blocked with a barrel, from the chinks around which there eddied drifts of peat smoke.

Morag called out and then opened the door. Hesitantly I followed her into a room where an old man sat at a table slicing a loaf with a large clasp knife. He looked up as we entered and, brandishing the knife in welcome, bade us be seated. My companion lowered herself on to a plank supported by two more barrels and introduced me to Farquhar, a scarecrow of a man whose clothes hung raggedly on his gaunt, bony frame. As he shook my hand his blue eyes gazed at me with quick intelligence from deep in his lean, dark face, the skin of which was fissured and brown as the bark of an ancient oak.

Morag and our host immediately started to compare reminiscences of Ian Mor and, as their conversation lapsed into the Gaelic, I was at leisure to examine my surroundings. The room, though rude, was surprisingly warm with the heat from an enormous peat fire which glowed on an open hearth; the smoke curled upwards to be caught by yet another barrel suspended from a beam and guided through a hole in the thatch. By no means all the smoke escaped this way; quite a lot still eddied about the room, but peat smoke can be thick indeed before it becomes unpleasant. Apart from the table and the plank upon which we were sitting, the only furniture was the barrel on which Farquhar himself was seated when we arrived. The floor was a jig-saw pattern of driftwood of all shapes and sizes, and in all stages of decay. There was no sign of a bed and I wondered if there could possibly be another room in which Farquhar slept, or if he slept on the plank we now occupied. Illumination was provided by a candle which stood, supported by a cake of its own grease, in the centre of the table. Beside the loaf of bread was a jar of jam, a paper of butter, some oatcakes and a saucer of crowdie. Evidently we had interrupted Farquhar at his evening meal but, in no way put out, he gestured enthusiastically towards the oatcakes and jam, telling us as though it was a recommendation that he had made the former himself; he was already wiping a horny finger round the inside of two handle-less cups ‘to chase out the dust' before Morag, noticing my frantic signals, managed to convince him that we could not possibly drink another cup of tea or eat one mouthful of food. He was sorely disappointed at our refusal and obviously considered that he was being slighted; but I felt that I had gone through enough for one night. For the life of me I could not have swallowed food in that house.

As Farquhar talked animatedly I noticed that he continued to cut and butter slices of bread, until he had sliced up the whole loaf. It seemed an enormous meal for one old man but, before he resumed his own repast, he deliberately placed one of the buttered rounds at each corner of the table farthest away from him. I had by that time become accustomed to the eccentricities of some of the older crofters but, as Morag had distinctly told me that Farquhar had always lived alone since he was capable of doing so, I rejected the idea that the rounds were set there for a brace of memorable family ghosts. My thoughts were busily engaged in seeking a reasonable explanation for his action when I glimpsed a stealthy movement and, turning, saw two beady eyes followed by the head and body of a large rat appear over the corner of the table. Stifling a scream I jumped up on to the plank.

‘There's a rat!' I gabbled hysterically. ‘A rat! A rat! He's taken your bread!'

Morag pulled at my skirts; Farquhar stopped eating and stared at me; only the rat remained completely self-possessed.

‘Surely,' answered Farquhar mildly. ‘'Tis for him that I'm after puttin' it there.'

‘You put it there for a rat?' I stammered in awed incredulity. ‘Is it poisoned then?'

‘Indeed no,' replied Farquhar, ‘but I always put something out for him when I take my own food and he knows it well.'

‘Why?' I asked weakly.

‘Because if I didn't he would come up here and pinch mine,' answered the old man philosophically.

I gripped Morag's arm as a second rat appeared at the opposite corner and took away the remaining slice of bread.

‘That's his wife.' Farquhar explained, but I was too upset even to pretend an interest in rodent relationships.

‘Is it just two pets you have?' I asked, gingerly lowering myself to the seat.

‘Ach indeed no!' Morag answered for him. ‘Sure all the rats in the village is welcome in Farquhar's house.' She turned to the old man. ‘I hope the rest are as well trained as those two.'

Farquhar shook his head in sorrowful denial.

I made desperate signs that I wished to go home, but courtesy forbade brief partings and so it was some agonising minutes before I made for the door with what Morag afterwards referred to as ‘indigent haste'.

‘Come again any time, Miss Peckwitt,' Farquhar called; ‘and don't be afraid of the rats,' he chuckled. ‘Rats is all right. I always know what to expect from a rat, and that's more than I can say of any other body in this village.'

‘What did you think of that now?' queried Morag when we were a safe distance from the house.

I made no reply.

Morag laughed. ‘He's got some sense though has old Farquhar,' she said.

‘That's not my impression of him,' I retorted.

It was now past midnight; the sky had cleared completely and a brilliantly full moon sailed placidly on an indigo sea. The distant hills were crested with silver and away to our right Rhuna Island appeared like a handful of crushed black velvet dropped carelessly on the water. We walked quickly, for the night was cold. A rabbit darted across my path and I jumped as though shot.

‘It's no a rat,' comforted Morag. I guessed that Miss Peckwitt and the rats would soon be making a good ceilidh story.

As we neared the burial ground we saw that the bus still stood outside.

‘Good,' said my landlady; ‘maybe we'll be able to get a lift home.'

A murmur of voices reached us and turning into the ill-kept graveyard we went towards them, picking our way through tufts of weed and evading the cluttering branches.

Suddenly Morag pulled me to a stop.

‘Listen!' she commanded.

I listened with a quaking heart uneasy among the shadowed grey tombstones and the sibilant rustling of trees. The voices became distinct.

‘My, you near had that one.'

With relief I recognised Lachy's voice, for the second time that evening.

‘Try again.' That was undoubtedly Johnny. ‘Maybe you'll get it this time.'

There was a sound as of a pebble falling, followed by an exclamation of disgust, and then Lachy's voice again: ‘Your turn, Angus.'

Morag held my arm tightly.

‘What on earth can they be doing?' I whispered fiercely.

Cautiously edging our way between drunken tombstones and avoiding innumerable rabbit burrows, we moved forward, guided by a strong aroma of whisky which had completely overcome the customary dank and musty smell of the graves, to come upon a spectacle as macabre as that of the graveyard scene from
Hamlet
. Lachy, Johnny and Angus were crouched together in a devout-enough-looking group and were staring as though hypnotised at a wooden cross about ten yards in front of them. I too stared at the cross, for spiked carelessly on top of it was a widely grinning human skull.

‘Throw!' Johnny's voice broke out imperiously into the temporary silence.

Angus drew back his arm, a pebble hit the skull, and Lachy, going forward to inspect the target, gave a shout of admiration: ‘Good for you, man! That's only five teeth he has left now.'

‘Good-oh!' ejaculated Johnny. ‘We'll finish him off tonight yet.'

To come across three grave-diggers playing Aunt Sally in the moonlight with a human skull as a target was a shattering enough experience, but I had yet to appreciate the full horror of the situation. Morag stepped forward bristling with indignation.

‘Why! Johnny. Lachy, Angus!' she addressed them with withering scorn. ‘I'm ashamed of you! Grown men like yourselves, and nothin' better to do when you're supposed to be diggin' a grave for a poor man, than be playin' games with a corpus.'

The three men looked sheepish, but only for a moment.

‘We've finished diggin' the grave,' Lachy replied pertly.

‘Show me, then,' demanded Morag.

We followed them towards a clump of bushes a few yards away and looked down at a grave which was no more than two feet deep. Beside it lay a large sod of turf which had been rolled around a tree-trunk, Swiss roll fashion.

‘Surely if you don't put him deeper than that the dogs will have him out by the mornin'!' Morag reprimanded, throwing out her hands in a gesture of despair.

‘He'll be all right there,' said Johnny brusquely.

‘He will not,' answered Morag; ‘why did you no put him over there where there's more soil?'

‘Because it's so boggy over there now that the first shower of rain will float him out,' replied the undaunted Lachy.

‘It's only one bottle of whisky we got and it's only one grave we're diggin',' put in Angus.

Morag sighed heavily.

‘Anyway,' continued Lachy, ‘even diggin' that far we've dug up one body, so it must be plenty deep enough.'

‘Who would that be?' asked Morag with sudden interest.

‘You remember yon fellow who was drowned in England about twenty years ago, and they did somethin' to his body and sent him up here?'

‘So I do,' replied Morag; ‘Euan Beag that was surely?'

‘Aye, well it was him.'

‘Indeed.' Morag sucked in her breath impressively. ‘And what has he kept like?' she asked, curiosity overcoming indignation.

‘He was just as good as new,' answered Johnny, and the other two echoed his words.

‘And you had to bury him again?' pursued Morag.

‘No, we didn't yet.'

‘You didn't? Then what did you do with him?'

‘Ach, he's just there,' answered Lachy, pointing; ‘in the bushes there behind where Miss Peckwitt is standin'.'

Miss Peckwitt moved very quickly away from the bushes.

‘He's kept so well all these years, he'll keep a good while longer, so we'll put Ian Mor in and then put Euan Beag on top of him. That's the best way to keep the dogs out.'

The logic of Lachy's argument seemed to appeal to Morag, but she was a little disturbed in case someone might find the body under the bushes.

‘Ach, stop frettin',' Angus chided her; ‘we covered him over well with bracken and twigs, and there's nobody will find him there unless they tread on him first.'

I followed very closely on the heels of my companions.

‘Who's that?' Morag stopped and pointed to a mound that was conspicuous by its neatness.

‘That's Donachan, that was,' said Lachy in words strangely reminiscent of a famous petrol advertisement.

When we returned to the site of the Aunt Sally Morag went straight up to the skull and, taking it down from its perch, examined it critically.

‘Where did you get this?' she enquired.

‘Same grave,' said Lachy nonchalantly. ‘We found three of them altogether. That one was on the top.'

With renewed indignation Morag turned on the bus driver.

‘Why, Johnny! This is your poor great-grandfather, and indeed if he'd been alive this day, I'm tellin' you, you'd no be darin' to play skittles with his teeths.'

This statement was received in a contrite silence which lasted perhaps three seconds.

‘Well. I wish I'd inherited his teeth,' said Johnny with unseemly levity.

Morag looked at the skull affectionately, turning it round in her hands as a fond mother might display a pretty doll to a child.

‘There's not a mite of him you've inherited,' said Morag tartly. ‘You're no half, no, not a quarter the man he was.'

Johnny shuffled uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

‘Where's the rest of him?' Morag demanded.

Johnny pointed and Morag handed him the skull with the injunction that he must put it back with the rest of his great-grandfather.

‘Not till we've finished our game,' insisted Johnny. ‘I've got twenty cigarettes on it, and he canna' feel anythin' now.'

Morag clucked despairingly.

‘You shouldn't make people dig graves if you don't like what we do here,' began Lachy argumentatively.