The Hills is Lonely (16 page)

Morag nudged my arm as we stumbled along the tortuous little path that led to Padruig's cottage. ‘He talks awful wild sometimes,' she warned, ‘but don't be laughin' at him to his face or you'll upset him.'

I promised not to laugh.

‘And don't talk to Euan at all if you can help it' continued Morag. ‘If he was to swear in front of you, the Lord knows what Padruig would do to him.'

Reaching the cottage my companion pushed open the door and entered. I was about to follow, ducking my head to save banging it against the low roof, but recoiled as a dreadful stench assailed my nostrils.

‘Padruid, Padruig,' Morag chided the unseen occupants. ‘You and your ferrets! The smell of them is near knockin' Miss Peckwitt over backwards.'

Cautiously I started forward again, circumnavigating the large wooden chests which impeded the entrance both of people and of light. Morag motioned towards the chests, ‘Ferrets,' she explained in a whisper, but I had already discovered four of the little horrors for myself.

‘And you're feelin' better today, are you, Padruig my boy?' asked my landlady brightly as she crossed the kitchen. The room was incredibly dark and smoky and at first I could make out nothing but the dim glow of a fire, though there was still ample daylight outside.

A man's voice answered hoarse and low; ‘I'm better now. I'm for gettin' myself up tomorrow.'

‘You are not!' contradicted Morag flatly.

‘I am so,' maintained the voice firmly. ‘I got to sweep the chimbly.' Morag accepted the announcement with a sigh.

‘Here, I've brought Miss Peckwitt to see you,' she said, adroitly changing the subject.

With difficulty I groped my way across the kitchen; past a wooden bench on which I was just able to discern the figure of Euan sitting motionless as a statue; past a large barrel on top of which stood a water-pail, and as my eyes became accustomed to the gloom I managed to make out the shape of a recess bed in the corner where Padruig himself reclined. His horny hand grasped mine and shook it lengthily.

‘I'm goin' to light the lamp,' said Morag in a business-like tone and turning to Euan she commanded him to blow up the fire so that she could make a wee oatcake or two for their tea. Euan jumped up instantly, but instead of taking a pair of bellows, as I expected him to, he dropped down on his knees, puffed out his cheeks and commenced to blow on the fire with-such prodigious gusts that his eyes threatened to start out of his head at any moment. The dim glow showered sparks and blossomed gradually into a flickering flame which in contrast to Euan's madder-hued cheeks looked positively anaemic.

‘It's that dark in here I canna' see if you're well or dyin',' grumbled Morag as she put a spill to the wick of a miniature oil-lamp. ‘Sure if you don't throw them ferrets in the sea soon, they'll be takin' the bed from under you,' she admonished Padruig.

I smiled at Padruig and his gentle brown eyes smiled back at me shyly.

‘Are you hearin' from Lexy?' Morag enquired as she set the lamp on the mantelpiece and, taking a basin from the meagrely equipped dresser, scooped up some oatmeal from the barrel.

Padruig nodded.

‘Did you get someone to read it for you?' asked Morag.

Again Padruig nodded and, pointing to the mantelpiece, asked Morag to hand him an envelope which was hiding demurely behind a glass net float. Holding the envelope in his hand he pointed eagerly to the stamp.

‘All the waitresses in Glasgow has them little caps on their heads,' he told me, indicating the tiara worn by the Queen.

‘Do they?' I asked stoically.

‘Turn up that lamp a bitty, Euan,' Morag's voice interrupted, ‘I canna' see whether it's my hands or my feets I'm stirrin' with.' Euan did as he was told and then returned to his seat on the bench.

Padruig spoke again. ‘It's darker than this in Buck-ram Palace,' he said.

‘In Buckingham Palace? Is it really?' I asked in astonishment.

‘Yes,' he asserted, nodding his dark bullet head emphatically. I nodded wonderingly in return.

‘I been to England once,' Padruig continued, watching my face intently.

‘You did?' I asked, giving him nod for nod as well as I was able. ‘How nice that must have been. Did you enjoy yourself?'

‘Yes, yes.' His own nodding was becoming extraordinarily vigorous. I doubted if I could keep pace.

‘I went to Buckram Palace to see the Queen.'

Helplessly I glanced at Morag, but she was busily occupied in pouring melted fat into the bowl of oatmeal.

‘You did? You were very lucky,' I said faintly.

‘Yes, up lots and lots of steps I been.' Padruig was still staring at me with concentrated attention and I risked a sober nod.

‘Ever so many steps,' he continued. ‘Up, up, up,' He demonstrated on the blanket with two of his stubby fingers how he had laboured up the steps of ‘Buckram Palace', pausing every now and then to ensure by an anxious glance that I understood him.

‘Just give me a hand with this,' Morag broke peremptorily into a brief but awed silence. Thankfully I moved over to the table. She put a finger to her lips and frowned expressively: and, guessing that she was again imploring me not to laugh, I shook my head reassuringly, for I was not so much amused as amazed by the tale. On the bed, Padruig was still engrossed in climbing the innumerable steps of ‘Buckram Palace', while from the bench the almost toothless Euan watched him with wide, fascinated eyes.

‘We get to top,' Padruig waved an expressive arm above his head, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Euan ogle the rafters.

‘And what did you find then?' I asked him, feeling rather like the inquisitor of the pussy cat who went to London.

‘Chairs!' burst out Padruig. ‘Chairs!' he repeated, ‘hundreds and hundreds of little red armchairs all in rows. As true as I'm here.' He leaned earnestly towards me as though doubting my credulity.

‘Really?' I murmured politely. ‘And the Queen? Where did you see the Queen?'

‘The Queen', echoed Padruig rapturously. ‘My, my, beautiful she was. Beautiful just.' He sighed lingeringly, ‘But it was so dark in Buckram Palace,' he went on, ‘that the Queen herself had to run in front of every body with a little torch, and show people which was their seats.

‘Really!' I quavered.

‘And what did you take for your breakfast, Padruig, my boy?' My landlady's voice broke opportunely into the recital and, giving Padruig no chance to reply, she pushed a cup of tea and two or three hot buttered oatcakes into his hand.

I subsided on to the bench beside Euan, refusing the tea Morag had proffered, which I was quite sure would be ferret flavoured. Suddenly Euan uttered an exclamation and jumping to his feet he charged recklessly through the outer door, muttering under his breath words which sounded suspiciously maledictory. I wondered what I had done and looked questioningly at Morag.

‘It's his ducks,' she told me. ‘He has one duck and one drake and he thinks the world of them just. But they plague the life out of him, always gettin' into the wee bit garden Padruig takes so much care of, and if Padruig catches them there he'll be for killin' them. Is that not right, Padruig?'

Padruig, his mouth crammed to capacity with oatcake, grumbled confirmation.

‘Sure,' continued Morag, ‘Euan spends most of his time chasin' them ducks away from Padruig's garden, and when he's chased them far enough he has to go and seek for them for fear they'll run away on him.'

As Morag was speaking she was rinsing soiled dishes in the remainder of the hot water from the kettle and, taking a cloth which was grey with age, I dried them and put them back on the dresser. Morag then started to tidy up but as the room was so austerely furnished the amount of actual tidying needed was negligible. The house may, as Morag claimed, have been spotlessly clean —if one excepted the ferrets—but there was so little illumination, either natural or artificial, that it was impossible for the casual observer like myself to tell whether it was clean or filthy.

Before we went I pointed to an extremely handsome bird-cage which was suspended from the ceiling on the far side of the room. It was a beautiful cage, shining and clean, its ornate brassy decorations gleaming like gold, but to me the thought of a creature so sun- and freedom-loving as a bird incarcerated in such gloom was distressing.

‘Your bird is very quiet,' I observed.

Morag prodded me hastily. ‘He has no bird,' she told me, hurrying me out of the house.

Outside there was still enough daylight for us to see Euan returning to the byre, shepherding in front of him two plump, waddling, quacking ducks. He stood and smiled at us vacuously.

‘Fine ducks,' I commented.

‘Bloody fine ducks.' Euan agreed blissfully.

‘Euan!' interposed Morag in tones that shrivelled the half-wit into abjectness.

‘What do you feed them on?' I enquired.

‘Duck eggs. Missed.' the reply came with prompt servility. (Euan had never made up his mind whether to address me as ‘Miss' or ‘Mistress', but his compromise of ‘Missed' was, I suppose, as apt a designation as any other for a middle-aged spinster.)

‘Duck eggs?' I echoed foolishly. ‘Where do you get them?'

Euan bestowed on Morag a look that was eloquent with pity. ‘The ducks lays eggs,' he elucidated. ‘Best Bl—— Best food for ducks, Missed.'

‘Yes, of course,' I agreed wanly, faced with the eternal problem of which came first.

We were well out of range of the house before I asked Morag why she had nudged me at the mention of the bird-cage. She told me that Padruig had seen the cage at an auction sale some years ago and had fallen so much in love with it that he had insisted on buying it.

‘There's nothin' in the whole of the village that gets a quarter of the care that cage gets; if he isna' painting it he's polishin' it, and if he's no polishin' it he's tattin' with it some way or another.'

‘I wonder he doesn't want a bird to keep in it,' I said.

‘Indeed if a bird set foot in that cage Padruig would wring its neck,' replied Morag seriously.

The next day Padruig kept to his intention of leaving his bed and when Lachy and I passed the house in the early afternoon we saw him preparing to sweep the chimney by means of a large bunch of heather and a stone which were tied to one end of a rope.

‘He ought not to be doing that,' I told Lachy. ‘He hasn't really recovered from his flu.'

‘Ach, we'll just keep behind the dyke here and see he doesn't come to any harm.'

We watched Padruig, who may have been feeling as dizzy as he looked, climb with the aid of a flimsy ladder on to the roof and fling his arms passionately around the single chimney pot. After clinging desperately for a few minutes he decided it was safe to let go with one hand with which he began to manipulate the rope.

‘How does he sweep the chimney with that arrangement?' I asked Lachy, who explained that the stone was lowered down the chimney and was then removed by a confederate inside the house. The confederate then pulled on the end of the rope until the man on the roof shouted the signal to stop; the cleaning being accomplished by each man hauling on the rope in turn, thus causing the bunch of heather to scrape up and down the chimney and dislodge the soot.

‘Ready!' We heard Padruig's stentorian shout, but unfortunately Euan, who should have been ready to remove the stone and pull, had just noticed that his ducks were bent on entering Padruig's beloved garden and had rushed off after them, hurling murderous-looking boulders and colourful abuse. Padruig, discovering the desertion of his accomplice, pulled furiously on the rope, climbed wrathfully down from the chimney and also gave chase. His abuse was equally colourful and the boulders he threw looked just as murderous. It was only the target that was different!

A few minutes later Padruig returned dragging a crestfallen Euan by the scruff of the neck. Again he ascended the roof and again, with the deliberateness of a star performer in a play, he made his preparations.

‘Right!' he bawled down the chimney, but the recalcitrant ducks had grown impatient for their feed and were already engaged on their investigation of the garden. With a stream of curses and an utter disregard for Padruig's instructions, Euan chased the two ducks down towards the burn. Padruig's language as he descended from the roof a second time and took off after his errant brother outrivalled Euan's worst.

Lachy and I made our presence known.

‘I'm goin' to tie him to the end of the rope when I get him, and jiggle him up and down the chimney,' Padruig panted as he passed us at a vengeful trot.

‘I believe he means it, too,' laughed Lachy.

By what means Padruig eventually completed the chimney sweeping I have no idea, for I had to be on my way, but when I returned later that afternoon a sinuous column of blue smoke was ascending serenely from the chimney, and the satisfying fragrance of burning peat fingered warmly in the chill air. I caught sight of Euan, who, with many furtive glances at the house, was shooing his duck and drake towards their evening quarters in the cow byre.

‘He Breeah!' called.

With a guilty start he whisked round to return my greeting. He looked very chastened—and very black!

It was about a month or so later when I met Euan again. He was staying alone in the house, Padruig having gone to spend a holiday with his newly married sister on the other side of the Island.

‘Well, and how are your ducks?' I asked him, after I had made the necessary enquiries as to his brother's health.

‘Bugger died on me,' he replied despondently.

I was suitably astonished. ‘When was that?' I asked.

‘Soon,' he answered with a lachrymose nod.

I wanted to commiserate but was at a loss to know which tense to commiserate in.