A Croft in the Hills (11 page)

She took an intense interest in the weather, understanding instinctively the effect it had on all our lives. The stars had a deep fascination for her. They are her bright lights. This
fascination has grown, over the years, and her present ambition is to become an astronomer. Jim and I have exhausted our stock of knowledge of the subject and have imparted all the legends we know,
too. We’ve given her two star-books and she often drags us out, on a glittering cold night, to identify planets and look for shooting stars. We wouldn’t have it otherwise; we gladly
suffer frozen toes and a crick in the neck so that she may revel in the blaze of the night sky. She is a great stickler for accuracy, and I’m certain that at the back of the statistics
she’s catching the steady gleam of poetry.

During that summer she began to get ‘itchy feet’. She could already manage a hill walk of three or four miles, with us. Now she showed definite signs of wanting to go off
occasionally on her own. Sometimes it would be to Woodend she’d go, sometimes over to the Macleans, where young Bertha was always ready for a game. We’d watch her progress from wherever
we were working, see the small figure bouncing from tussock to tussock across the moor-ground, watch it disappear behind the raised bank at the burn-side and emerge seconds later on the other side
of the water-splash. She was always sure of her welcome in the little house, where Mrs. Maclean would have a drink of milk for her, or lemonade, if the day was warm, and a pancake off the girdle
and a sweetie for the way home.

She was big for her age, strong and independent, yet she was still not much more than a baby. Every day, after dinner and after supper, I used to take her on my knee and read her a story, from a
book with large print and plenty of pictures. One day I suddenly realised that she was growing up. It was wet and I was mixing a cake in the kitchen. Helen was sitting quietly in the living-room.
All at once she came to my side, dumped an open book in the midst of the floury mess on the table and began, quite calmly, to read to me. The words were simple and mostly of one syllable, but she
hardly hesitated. I just held my breath and listened. It seemed like a minor miracle to me. To her, it was the simplest thing in the world, quite obviously. Since that day she has gone on reading
steadily and our only difficulty now is to keep her supplied with books.

Helen found the wireless a great delight during that last preschool year and she would caper round the kitchen to ‘Music and Movement’, tap with the poker to ‘Time and
Tune’, and sing at the top of her voice with William Appleby. She even listened, enthralled, to the adventures with prehistoric monsters in ‘How Things Began’ and insisted on
having ‘Science and the Community’ turned on full blast, though what she made of it none of us were sure!

She was never bored—every day brought something different to do. Times of celebration, such as Christmas, Hallowe’en and birthdays, were eagerly looked forward to and prepared
for.

‘How lonely she must be!’ several of our friends said, at various times. They no doubt had a picture in their minds of one small girl surrounded by acres and acres of solitude and
quiet. From the cosiness of suburbia, where there are iced lollies round the corner, shop-windows full of glittering toys, and a bus to take hordes of good children to the Saturday morning film
show, this vision must have been something to turn from with a shudder.

Alone she undoubtedly is, in the sense that each one of us is alone, to the end of time. But she has learnt to face that aloneness from the start, she has grown up with it, so that she knows
it’s not a fearful thing. It will never become a bogy, to be dodged, but is already a companion she can walk with hand in hand. She has always had to do the last bit of the road from school
on her own, along the track through the heather. Sometimes, if the day is really bad, we have hurried to meet her, for she still seems such a minute scrap of humanity, set against the vastnesses of
hill and sky. But not once have we found her in the least disconcerted by snow, gale or thunder. She plods along, with a twinkle in her eye, taking whatever comes.

All in all, by the end of that second summer, we felt that our plan for Helen was working out better than we hoped.

CHAPTER IX

AN IMPROMPTU HOLIDAY

T
HE
combination of hay-harvesting (comparatively easy though this had been) and house-painting, interspersed with pig-chasing left us, we had to admit,
a little jaded, and the really big task of the year—the harvesting of the corn—was still to come. Everything was under control; the potatoes were in full bloom, the new pigs still at
the amenable stage, the pullets settled in their deep-litter. Suddenly, simultaneously into our two minds, leapt the idea that a little holiday, just a long week-end, would be wonderful! We still
had Billy. We might not have him another year, but for the moment we had him. We had never had the slightest qualm about leaving him in full charge when we had had to be away for a whole day at the
market. He was as honest as daylight and well used to looking after himself.

Surely we could leave him to cope for the week-end? we asked ourselves. It was really more of a statement than a query and within twenty-four hours our minds were made up.

There is never any wondering with us what form a brief holiday shall take. We simply bundle ourselves, some bedding and some food into the old van and are off. That is half the joy of it,
really, the knowledge that you can, within a matter of minutes, almost (though not quite!) as birds take wing, be on your way. There is no wearisome planning and contriving and agonising over
expense. The van is there, we have to eat wherever we are, and a few gallons of petrol can’t break the bank.

We decided to leave on the Friday and to be back by the following Tuesday afternoon. I unearthed the two inflatable rubber mattresses, an old cot mattress of Helen’s and the warm
sleeping-bags. I packed three biscuit tins with food, filled an egg-box, gathered an assortment of plates, cups, knives and forks, bathing suits, old rubber shoes, extra garments, the bivouac, a
book or two and the camera, into a kit-bag, and we were ready for the road.

Where to go is never any problem; the west is in our blood and we simply gravitate towards it, as the birds migrate with the sun. Billy was most helpful and quite entered into the spirit of the
thing. He even gave the van a clean-up and stuck a bit of canvas over a leaky portion of the roof, then he filled an extra can with petrol and stood by to give us rather a wondering farewell wave.
Perhaps he doubted whether he’d ever see us all alive again.

It was drizzling, and certainly rather chilly, as we crawled up the ‘overside’. We turned our heads at the top of the rise and glanced back at our little fields of ripening corn and
potatoes and roots. The sheep and cattle looked small, defenceless dots in the distance. We felt a little guilty about leaving these well-loved tyrants of ours, even for a few days,
but—‘Ach, everything will be all right without us’, we said, to ease our minds, and we chugged slowly north and west.

We went through Beauly, Muir of Ord and Garve—pleasant places all of them, but just a little tame. Then we swung on to the moor road and we knew we were really on our way. There was a grey
mist over the hills and the burn was foaming amber after the rain. With every mile the authentic smell of the west came at us more strongly—there s nothing like it anywhere. It’s made
of the scent of wet heather and sea-tangle and mist and hill-air and it always goes straight to our heads. We opened the windows wider and poked our noses out, to get a delighted sniff. Helen
clutched Duchess round the neck and began groping for her spade and pail.

We cruised along the side of Loch Broom into Ullapool, passed the last straggle of the village and looked for a turning to the sea. We knew we simply had to get our hands into sea-water that
day. Another mile or so and we were bumping along a deep-rutted track towards a small lighthouse. Right at the point we came to a halt on a rise of bright green sward. Straight ahead lay the Summer
Isles; the water between was gleaming in the pale, evening sunlight. We sat a moment looking and listening to the slapping of the small waves on the pebble beach. Then Helen, already shoeless, made
straight down to the water’s edge and we followed, strolling at leisure, as though there were all the time in the world for everything—the west had already imposed its rhythm on us.

From the contemporary point of view, the average west coaster is a failure: he has no ambition, no drive. Because he has no desire to be for ever ‘bettering’ himself, he is
considered lazy and feckless. True, in former times many people from the west went to America and Canada, where some of their descendants have made names for themselves; we hear of the few, but of
the many there is no record. It is not always realised that those emigrations were, in most cases, enforced by the ruthless, alien landlords, who emerged after the real clan system had broken down.
The men were driven to the boats, the women and children were carried aboard, and the songs which drifted back across the water as the boats put out were laments, bitter, hopeless laments. Many a
settler would sit, years afterwards, looking across the ‘waste of seas’ and in his dreams ‘behold the Hebrides’. He had no natural desire to leave his native coast—why
should he? Times might have been bad, but they might be bad anywhere. At least, as long as he was not interfered with, the west coaster need never have starved. Even if the crops failed utterly, he
could get his fish from the sea and his bit of game from the hill. The seaweed itself made a tasty dish, full of iodine and health-giving minerals. And he had his horizon; he could see things in
the light of infinity, which is the only way to get a true perspective. Why should he want to exchange all this, for a mad rush after money? What could money buy that wouldn’t bring him envy
and discontent, an aching head and ulcers in his stomach? The west coaster will leave it to others to achieve brilliance as politicians and administrators. He’ll also leave it to others to
become spivs or invent the nuclear bomb. Give him three rooms to house his family, a few acres and a boat and he’s the happiest man on earth. He still believes in happiness.

These thoughts were in our minds, as we looked back across Loch Broom and saw the tiny fields sloping down to the water’s edge. Every inch of ground was cultivated; the small patches of
corn and potatoes and roots were bright and flourishing. The natural manuring of the beasts, plus the application of seaweed and shell sand, has resulted in a high degree of fertility in the
crofting ground. The Cheviot sheep that were grazing right down to the water’s edge looked remarkably fit and strong. Hay-making was in full swing and every available pair of hands was busy
hanging the grass on tripods to dry.

When Helen had dabbled to her heart’s content in the clear, green water, we looked for a spring, gathered driftwood and built a fireplace. Soon, ham and eggs and tomatoes were sizzling in
the pan and we ate a leisurely meal, washed down with hot, delicious tea, and stretched ourselves on the turf in relaxation. Sun, moon and stars were to be our timepieces for the next few days. Our
watch was not reliable, anyway, and we wanted to discard all sense of urgency. There was no cow to be milked, there were no pigs or hens to feed, no eggs to collect, no weeds to watch
for—there was nothing to hinder our entry into timelessness. And that is surely as near as we’ll ever get to a glimpse of the infinite, this side of Styx.

When Helen began to yawn I unrolled her mattress and placed it across the two front seats of the van. Jim collapsed the other seats, to make the back part flat, and we blew up the rubber
mattresses and laid them lengthwise there. Duchess was accommodated in the bivouac, along with the stores.

Helen was asleep in a couple of minutes. Slowly, we washed and dried the dishes and made ourselves another brew of tea, while the sunset colours faded from the sky and little flashes of light
began to wink out from the far headlands. We were loath to sleep. Why, at any rate in summer, did people bother to live in houses? we wondered, and we found again the contradictions in ourselves.
We loved our own small house, every stick and stone of it. We loved the bonds that held us to the work of cultivation, and we knew every corner of each of our fields. To see them in good heart gave
us the deepest kind of delight. To watch something edible, anything, even a lettuce, grow, where nothing but weeds had grown before, was the most satisfying thing we knew. Yet here we were,
completely happy as nomads! We had unearthed an even deeper level of existence.

Jim tells me that the Stewarts have always been quite content among the tinkers and I, a Stewart by adoption, would be happy to join forces with them. After the ’45 Rebellion, many of them
were obliged, like others of the resistance movement of the time, to take to the hills, and their descendants to this day find it difficult to conform. Every summer some of them pitch their small,
brown tents on the edge of our moor and make tin pans for us, in exchange for our discarded scraps of clothing and shoe-leather. Their brown faces are lean and wrinkled, but their eyes are bright,
and we’ve heard them in the evenings scraping away at a fiddle for the fun of the thing, with no one in miles to throw them a sixpence. They’re not exactly useful members of society,
perhaps, but they keep their own particular brand of integrity while many a County Councillor has lost his, somewhere on the way. Who knows?— they may make a better death on a bundle of
heather under the stars than he will on his sprung, quilted bed.