My Friends the Miss Boyds Read online

  As I turned to go on my way, sucking my ‘mint imperial’, he said: “Aye, Janet, so you are off then? Tell your Uncle Geordie a message for me, will you?”

  “Yes, Mr John-the-Smith. What?”

  “Tell him I am chust saying to him to keep his eye on them Miss Boyds.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “He’ll know fine why. Chust you tell him that’s what I was saying.”

  And he stood in his black, flame-lit doorway, holding on to the sides of his leather apron and you could have heard him laughing west at Ullapool.

  “Keep your eye on them Miss Boyds,” I said to myself, memorising the message. It was a caper, of course, but John-the-Smith always had capers that worked out well, and I would certainly give George the message, and as publicly as possible—at the supper-table would be a fine time, I thought.

  Miss Tulloch was surprised to see us so early, but pleased none the less, and Fly got a drink of milk, and I had lemonade out of a bottle with a glass ball in its neck and a plate of biscuits.

  “And now I’ll let you see Angus,” I said, and added sternly: “And you are not to be frightened of him.”

  But when I took Angus out of his bag Miss Tulloch was just like all the rest. She tried not to, but she just could not help drawing away from him and drawing her breath in at the same time.

  “He is a nice little craitur,” I told her. “Aren’t you, Angus boy?”

  “They—they’re awful clever beasties, I’m told,” she said, which was good of her, and she did not skirl and run away like a lot of people.

  She showed us how the rats came in and went down through a drain in the yard and seemed to come up somehow in her back shop and, sure enough, they had dug plenty of holes between the wall and the floor, the brutes, so I told her she had better go into the shop and shut the door before we started, and that, if Davie the Plasterer was at home, she should get him to come and stop the holes. She said she would send for Davie and went away, closing the door. I had my rat stick with me and Fly, who knew now why she had come to Achcraggan and had got a big bowl of milk, went about listening and sniffing while I blocked off certain holes at her direction with tight balls of sacking. Then we put Angus down the drain in the yard, and I quickly rolled a stone over it and dashed inside again, for Angus, too, knew why he was there and was off down that drain like a shot from a gun. We got three big rats at the first drive, Fly with her lip peeled back snapping their backs and tossing them over her shoulder in one black-and-tan movement. Then she listened a little, sat down and all we had to do was wait for Angus to come out, stop that hole and start all over again.

  By dinner-time Davie was there too, giving us a hand, and we had fifteen rats laid out on top of an old box in the back yard, for we had bolted a nest of four half-grown ones which always gives a rat bag a good lift, and most of the holes in the back shop were now neatly filled with plaster by Davie. Miss Tulloch gave us a good dinner—with meat that came out of a tin can, a thing I had never seen before, which looked red and raw, but it not being manners not to eat what people offered you, I took the first mouthful a little fearfully, then found it very good and ended by having a second helping before my stewed plums and custard. Fly was offered the custard that was left over, but would not eat it and Miss Tulloch looked hurt.

  “Would you keep it for her, please?” I asked. “You see, she is telling us there are more rats in it yet.”

  “Is she?” Davie asked, looking at Fly’s back as she sat. in the doorway that led through to the shop.

  “Yes,” I said, and Fly cocked her head over the other way. “See her listening at them?”

  “There canna be many more, Janet,” Miss Tulloch said, but I was sure they were there.

  Miss Tulloch went back to the shop and Fly and I, with Davie to help, went out to the yard.

  “It’s that danged drain,” said Davie. “What it needs is a grating across it to stop them getting in at all. It’s up the drain from the shore they’re coming.”

  But the rats had a second way, Fly was certain of that. She was no longer interested in the drain, but more than, interested in a corner of the walled yard in which stood Miss Tulloch’s big stack of empty boxes.

  “There’s something in that corner, Davie,” I said.

  “Well, we’ll soon see!” said Davie and began to move the boxes. It took a long time, moving them all and stacking them tidily in another place, but when we moved the last one we found three holes that came out of Miss Tulloch’s building and one that came through the yard wall.

  “The danged brutes!” said Davie indignantly.

  Fly was dancing about with her plumed tail high and murder in her golden eyes as she went from one hole to the other. Then she sat down and cocked her head at me. I took Angus from my neck and put him on the ground. He weaved his pointed head about along the row of holes, then flattened himself and disappeared down one that led into the shop. Fly, noiselessly, stepped along by the outside of the shop wall with her head cocked and then was off, in through the back shop, through the passage, into the front shop, which was full of Friday people, over the top of one counter, over the top of the other, while Davie and I with our sticks ran round behind. Chaos reigned. Fortunately, George and Tom were in the shop and I heard my uncle say: “It’s all right, leddies! It’s only Janet and Fly at the rats.” But all of us had reckoned without the Miss Boyds. I do not know how many of them were there, but from the yells they set up at the word ‘rats’ I felt they must have multiplied since last Sunday into fifty Miss Boyds. The din was unbelievable, while Davie and I thrashed about in the dimness in the limited space behind the counter at the enormous rat which, in Miss Tulloch’s heavily stocked shop, had far too many places to hide. But at last Fly got it, on the broad shelf among the biscuit tins at the end of the counter, gave it her one killing shake and tossed it over her shoulder plumb into the midst of the screaming Miss Boyds.

  To this day I can see George, Tom and Bill the Post—the only men in the shop—festooned with skirling Miss Boyds who were hanging round their necks and climbing up their arms; the dead rat in the middle of the floor, and all the Achcraggan women, Miss Tulloch and Davie lying at all angles against counters, barrels, boxes, helpless with laughter. And then, as the noise was just dying down and the three men freeing themselves from the encumbering Miss Boyds, like the last kick from the wings that the old music-hall stars used to give at the conclusion of their ‘turn’, Angus came out through the narrow space between the end of the counter and the wall, in that toothpaste-out-of-a-tube way that ferrets have. Before I could climb over the counter to pick him up, the first woman had seen him as he ambled across the floor with his back-arching lope, and with an eldritch screech she dropped her shopping-basket and made for the door.

  George, Tom and Bill the Post, still draped with Miss Boyds shrieking harder than ever, were overborne in the panic rush and the entire crowd debouched, wheeling and reeling into the street, where practically the whole population of Achcraggan had now gathered. I picked Angus up, put him on my shoulder and went to the door to see George and Tom shaking themselves and brushing Miss Boyds like flies from their arms and shoulders. Tom looked at me with dreadful bitterness: “Gawd dang ye and that bliddy ferret!” he bellowed.

  The women were now all in a covey, their eyes fixed on Angus and round with horror, but that meant nothing to me. Imagine My Friend Tom saying THESE WORDS TO ME! I snatched Angus from my shoulder and glared at the Miss Boyds who were the cause of all the trouble.

  “It’s throw Angus in among you that I’ll do!” I shouted.

  “Janet Sandison!” my uncle bawled. “Get inside there this minute and put that beast in its bag!”

  I did as I Was Told, but the Miss Boyds, with their skirts gathered round their bony knees, were running for home as if Angus was right behind them.

  Our journey back to Reachfar was a silent one. Even their business at the Plough had not made George and Tom chatty and cheerful as it usually did a
nd, to make matters worse, the news of the afternoon’s ratting in Achcraggan was home at Reachfar before us. As soon as we reached the door of the house, my father, his eyes glittering with mischief, came out and said: “What’s this I’m hearing, Tom, about you and George kissing the Miss Boyds in Miss Tulloch’s shop?”

  And for weeks afterwards, indeed, Tom and George could not set foot in the village without being asked questions like: ‘Have ye put up the banns yet, Tom?’ or ‘Now, which one o’ them is it that ye fancy, Geordie?’ while Bill the Post got to the stage of threatening to give up his job of postman altogether.

  As a child of eight, my understanding of the impact of the Miss Boyds on the life of our community was very limited, but not all grown-up people were as discreet as the members of my family in my hearing, and I gradually gathered that the Miss Boyds, from the oldest to the youngest, were reckoned to be ‘man-mad’ and that this was a very undesirable thing for women to be. My pretty Aunt Kate was one of the most popular young women at the Red Cross Dances, Church Picnics and the like, and had a host of admirers, but my grandmother had very strict views about fitting behaviour and a scathing tongue when laying down these views, so that, one Sunday, on the way to church she said: “And Kate, don’t let me see you and Sandy Farquharson ogling one another at the sermon today. If you want to behave like the Miss Boyds, go and live with them!” which turned my pretty aunt’s face a blazing, shamed scarlet.

  As a child of eight, still less did I understand the mentality of the Miss Boyds, of course, but, forty years later, I feel that when they sold their town house and took up permanent residence in Achcraggan they did a thing that was, at the least, foolhardy. They did not understand this remote community, and it did not understand them, for, apart from being used to town life, the Miss Boyds were Lowlanders by birth, and if ever there were two different races within the political boundary of a single country, there are two races in Scotland, or were in those days. Of the two, the Lowlander is by far the more honest, forthright person. He is shrewd and clever and he knows it, but he makes the great mistake of thinking that the slower-speaking, slower-moving Highlander is less shrewd and clever than himself, and, being a forthright person, he says aloud and honestly that he thinks so. The Highlander does not argue with him, for the Highlander is extremely polite by nature and would never contradict anyone about a point like that. He does not laugh with scorn in the Lowlander’s face either, for that also would not be polite, but, in a quiet way, on his own home pitch especially, he can make rings of shrewdness and cleverness round the Lowlander, and what is smarter still, contrive to maintain undamaged the Lowlander’s illusion that he is the shrewder, cleverer man of the two.

  The Miss Boyds, who came to Achcraggan with some idea, apparently, of being big frogs in a small pond, who were going to show the natives some style in the way of tea-parties, some high fashion in the way of dress and some bright ideas of all kinds, were destined from the start to be lambs to the slaughter. Their unfortunate hunger for male society, coupled with their total lack of any claim to physical good looks, was bound to complete their downfall in a district where beauty and distinction in the women was a commonplace rather than a rarity. At this distance of time I have some understanding of, and consequently pity for, the Miss Boyds, as well as some estimate of the cruel herd instinct of a small community, but as a child of eight I laughed with the rest. Even at that, I did not laugh as much or as often as many did, for my life was really remote from that of the village, and when, in the autumn, I went back to school, any rude, crude, school-child references to the Miss Boyds which I brought home were received by all my family with frozen faces and the admonition from my gentle mother: “Janet, don’t be vulgar,” or, from my father: “No gossip, Janet. This is Reachfar—not a village shop door. Get on with your supper.”

  In spite of this suppressive attitude on the part of my family, however, I knew that they were as maliciously interested in the Miss Boyds as was the rest of the district, and I was aware that when I was not present their latest peccadilloes were discussed with enjoyment in the Reachfar kitchen. I had been aware, many times in the past, that certain subjects were discussed by my family out of my hearing—things like the pennies in the bank, for instance, and whether the red cow should be ‘put to’ the Black Angus bull or the Shorthorn at Poyntdale this time. But in a superior way I inwardly said ‘Poop!’ to my family about these things, for I already knew all I wanted to know for the present about pennies in the bank and the mating of cows and was willing to allow my family its silly, secretive discussions about them.

  The Miss Boyds were a different matter. I did not understand as much as I wanted to about the Miss Boyds, and they were an ever-present, nagging problem to which I could find no satisfactory solution. The crux of this problem was that they were old maids who were despised for being old maids, but were despised still more for hanging round the menfolk and trying to alter their status. It did not make sense. I felt that people could not have it both ways. If to be an old maid was laughable and undesirable, was it not praiseworthy in the Miss Boyds to try to get married? Also, if men did not want to marry them, why did they not keep away from them as Tom, George and Bill the Post did? Why did a lot of the village men like Mrs Gilchrist’s Hughie and Lewie the Joiner’s Donald go to parties at the Miss Boyds’ and be seen giggling with them outside the post office and things like that? I questioned Tom on this last point.

  “Ach, be quiet with your ask-ask-asking about them danged Miss Boyds!”

  “I will not! I’ll tell Granny about you and George laughing about what Alex the Slater told you Miss Iris said to him on Saturday—that’s what I’ll do!”

  “Och, now, Janet, ye wouldna do a thing like that.”

  “Well, why do Alex and Hughie and Donald and them all go about the Miss Boyds if they don’t want to marry them?”

  “Och, it’s chust taking a rise out o’ the silly craiturs that the young fellows will be!” he said. “It’s only for a choke.”

  “What kind of joke?”

  “Och, it’s chust kind of comical and amusing the capers they will be at with their face powder and their scent and a-all. And all that love stories they will be reading and for ever talking about.”

  “Auntie Kate would put powder on her face if Granny would let her, and she’s got dozens of love stories up in her room.”

  “Ach, Auntie Kate is only a lassie—no’ a foolish old maid!”

  There it was again, the complete vicious circle.

  * * * * *

  Late in September, on a bright harvest Sunday, when the new-cut stubble was golden in the sun, the Firth blue as my aunt’s dance dress and the Ben purple as the pansies in my grandmother’s Sunday hat, my family retired for its Sunday Sleep and Fly and I decided to go and have a Look Round at the old quarry. The old quarry was at the south-easternmost corner of Reachfar, where our march fence on the east divided us from the upper moorland of Seamuir, and where, on the south, it divided us from the lower moorland of Greycairn. The quarry had been disused for about seventy years and had never been a big working, but had yielded enough freestone for the church, the manse, the school, schoolhouse and one or two walls in Achcraggan. Old Murdo the Mason was the only man in the district who could remember stone coming out of it and Murdo did not know when he himself was born. At that time it had been the property of Seamuir, but when the farms had been properly fenced at the turn of the century Captain Robertson’s father had told the fencers to take a straight line north and south, which left the disused, useless quarry on the west, and Reachfar, side of the march.

  The quarry was a little like Angus and the Strip of Herbage—it was popular with no one at Reachfar except myself—but for me it had many attractions, not the least of which was that it was Absolutely Forbidden Ground. It would have been a circular green basin lying on the sloping hillside except that its more elevated side, instead of being a continuation of the curve, was a straight line where the old quarry face had b
een. The stone of this face, being soft and friable, had a deep fissure running diagonally across it, in which three rowan trees and two wild cherries or ‘geans’ had taken root, and, in lesser fissures, ferns, pale foxgloves and strange trailing mosses had made themselves at home. It was a dank sort of place. The basin-like hollow that was the quarry floor was carpeted with mossy green grass, out of which grew clumps of whin and broom, wild raspberries and brambles, and in the centre of the hollow a spring seeped up, forming a small, weedy pool which was inhabited by a fascinating family of newts.

  When I had been a small child, free to roam, attended by Fly, the two forbidden places had been the well on the moor above the house and the old quarry. The well, I was told, was inhabited by a fierce old man called Sandy, who had red whiskers and was always on the lookout for children to steal, and the quarry was even worse, for it was the home of a fearsome character called Rory, with black whiskers, who lay in wait for children to come along and then caused lumps of freestone to break away from the quarry face and kill them. The psychology of this, as applied to me, was bad, for my family had overlooked the fact that my grandfather and many of my best friends had whiskers and that I was therefore convinced of the essential benevolence of all men with whiskers. For this reason, Fly had had to drag me back from the rim of the deep well by my dress, because I had crawled through the fence to visit Sandy who lived there, and as soon as I was old enough to walk the four miles to the quarry I naturally went there too, to pay a call on the black-whiskered Rory.

  By the time I was six years old, of course, I knew that it was all a Pack of Lies about Sandy in the well and made Tom and George admit it, but the quarry was a different proposition. My grandmother and my father and mother were the ones who gave the orders about where I could and could not go, as a rule, but about the quarry Tom and George were the most virulent forbidders, so that I did not dare discuss Rory with them at all, much as I wanted to. You see, it was true about the quarry. Some mysterious person did live there, in the cave with the narrow mouth at the foot of the rock face, although I had never happened to find him at home and he had never hurled any lumps of rock down on me. Instead of a door, his home had a big boulder about twice the size of myself in front of the cave opening, but I had several times peered round the side of it into his darksome place. Inside he had a few odds and ends of buckets and bottles, and some bags that looked as if they held oats which were protected from his dripping roof by some rusty corrugated sheeting. Away back, in the dimmest part of all, was his fireplace where he did his cooking, and on this there was a funny round pot with a long spout from its top that seemed to go up his chimney and became invisible in the black, dripping darkness above. It was a frightening place, although it was very interesting, because it was so very, very secret. I could not go there very often because of the risk of being caught by Tom or George, who were smarter at catching you at things than the rest of my family, but when I had an overwhelming need for a shiver of Tremendous, Thrilling Secret, I would go there and take a look inside.