A Croft in the Hills (21 page)

Billy would be leaving us as soon as harvesting operations were over as the Welfare people considered, quite rightly, that it was time he was embarking on a definite career. We said good-bye to
him at the beginning of December and he went to work on a big dairy farm near Beauly. He had done well by us as he had always been willing to tackle anything—from taking Helen to school to
painting the gable beams of the house—he had been happy with us, I think. We liked to see him laugh—and to listen to the tunes he got out of his accordion. Whenever he went to town he
brought back a piece of chocolate for Jim, because he knew he liked it, and he always remembered our birthdays with a small gift shyly pushed along the kitchen table. He was growing into a big,
burly fellow and he had the makings of a man of sound heart.

A few days before Christmas Jim went off to work. I took the Glen Convinth bus to town, to do the last of the Christmas shopping. The shops were warm and glittering and full of excited people,
jostling one another to secure their tokens of goodwill. I felt very lonely and bewildered among the crowd so I made my purchases as quickly as possible, drank a hurried cup of tea and made for the
early bus. I was thinking of our small, storm-tossed home and longing to be back in it, with Helen safe beside me. It had been blowing a gale when I left in the morning; Heaven only knew what
damage might have been done in the interval. Also there would be no Jim to meet me at the gate, to take the parcels from my aching fingers, to tell me all was well, the animals were seen to, and
there was a good fire in the kitchen. That was his normal welcome when I returned from a shopping expedition, but this time I would have to manage everything alone.

We picked Helen up at the schoolhouse door. As she and I emerged from the bus ten minutes later, at the crossroads, a gust of wind caught us and literally sent us spinning on our way. I
don’t think I’ve ever felt anything like the force of the gale that was blowing that night. It was from the north and it came at us like a wave of solid matter pressing on our backs.
Helen was tossed ahead of me. Only my superior weight, and the weight of the bags I was carrying, kept me more firmly anchored to the road. To climb the stile, a thing normally accomplished quite
automatically, became a precarious operation. It was touch and go whether we landed on the other side upright or prone in the heather.

Reaching the Macleans’ house at last, we staggered into the warmth and light of their kitchen, gasping for breath. Bertha had just recovered from measles and Mrs. Maclean was not too well,
but they had seen us coming from the little back window, and they had tea ready for us and a plate of pancakes. The hot drink and their kindly concern put heart into us for the last lap of the
journey.

We left most of our parcels with them for collection next day and, with the loan of a stick and a torch, set off to cross the burn and make our way up the moor path. As we neared the house I
sensed that something was missing. I peered about in the gloom and saw that another of our giant rowans was lying prone, its roots streaming in the wind, like pennons. We reached the back doorstep
and nearly stumbled over the huge, galvanised water-butt, which had been blown clean off its brick foundation. I pushed open the door and we burst thankfully into the calm of the kitchen.

There were many jobs to be done, but the first essential was warmth. I lit a candle (the windmill batteries had perished in the frosts of the previous winter and we hadn’t renewed them, as
the electricity was on its way), and soon had a fire going and the kettle on the spirit-stove. Then I lit the lamp and settled Helen at the fire, with a cup of cocoa and a book, while I went to see
to the animals. The hens had long since gone to roost, but their crops would be well filled, for they had hoppers of mash and had only to help themselves whenever they felt peckish. I groped for
the eggs by torchlight and made my way to the byre. The cows had been in all day and were ravenous and they turned their heads towards me expectantly, as I hung the storm-lantern on the hook in the
roof-beam. I was thankful that hay and corn sheaves were to hand, in the false roofs Jim had made, and had only to reach up with a fork and tumble the sweet-smelling stuff down into the
beasts’ fodder-racks. Then I had to fetch pail after pail of water, to satisfy their great winter thirsts. Each time I staggered out to fill another pail at the byre butt I wondered if I
would be blown into the next parish before I could get back with it!

I came in at last for the night and found Helen curled contentedly in her chair. She was to prove a most steadfast companion during the weeks and months we were to be alone on the croft. She
never minded in the least being left by herself in the house, while I saw to the animals or went up to the gate to fetch the grocery box. Very often she accompanied me about these jobs, but many
times it was too wild for her to be out. Then she would stay quite happily on her own, even after dark or during a severe thunderstorm.

Darkness, thunder, gale have never held the slightest terror for her. To grope one’s way home on a pitch-black night, when the torch battery has failed, she considers fun. I’ve seen
her stand at the window watching delightedly for the next lightning flash and counting the seconds till the great, satisfying crash of the thunder came. She seems to sense that these wild, natural
outbursts are only rather spectacular phenomena, which have nothing to do with her inner composure.

By the following morning the gale had lessened and I let the cows out for an airing and a drink and had a look over the sheep. I had just done the feeding round that evening when the wind began
to rise again. It was coming in sudden squalls, straight out of the north, and it now had an edge to it—it seemed as though there was nothing between us and Iceland. The grocer’s van
came late that night; the force of the wind was such that it blew me round in a complete circle as I came down from the gate with the box of groceries clutched in my arms. I was a little worried,
for the following day was the day of the Christmas concert at Helen’s school. She was to take part in two little performances—one she had been practising for some time and one she had
taken over just a few days before, when another child went down with measles. Luckily, she herself had got her measles over at the age of eighteen months! In the evening there was to be a party for
all the children of the district in the Abriachan schoolroom and somehow or other I had to get Helen to both these festivities.

I lay awake that night listening to the wind tearing at the house and making the beams rock. I slipped down early in the morning and peered out into the gloom: snow was whirling out of the
bitterly cold wind. I lit two candles and we had our breakfast crouched by the living-room fire. I left Helen in the warmth, while I went to feed the horse and the cows and hens. Then we had to
face our two-mile walk into the teeth of the storm.

I tucked Helen’s skirt into a pair of old breeches and made her wear two coats and a scarf wound round her balaclava so that only her eyes were showing. By the time we reached the Macleans
we were already plastered from head to foot with driven snow. We found Mrs. Maclean far from well and I promised to telephone the doctor from the kiosk by the school. We struggled on, heads down,
along the exposed stretch of road and down the long hillside to the comparative shelter of the glen where the school lay. I left Helen in the cheerfully warm, excited atmosphere of a small
schoolroom on closing-day, rang up the doctor and made the return journey comparatively easily, sailing along before the wind.

It was after mid-day when I reached home again and I was so hungry that it hurt! I cooked a chop on the spirit-stove and made a big jug of coffee. Then I fed and watered all the animals
liberally as this feed would have to last them until the following morning. I changed, reluctantly but dutifully, into a tidy outfit, swathed myself in coats again, and set off once, more to the
school.

The little performance went off beautifully and Helen said her pieces without a hitch. Afterwards we drank tea and ate cream buns and sang carols with the children. The room was an oasis of
warmth and light and colour. It seemed scarcely possible that a storm was still howling outside—but howling it was!

I knew it would be madness to attempt the long journey home and then the extra mile to Abriachan, on our own, in the blackness. So I rang up the school bus driver, who runs a car for private
hire, and asked him if he would take us round. He was a little doubtful whether he’d manage to get up the hill, as it was very slippery, but said he would try. He’s a great, burly
fellow, always laughing and game for anything. His own bus, which he runs into town twice a week, is something of an institution. He stops at each regular passenger’s gate or road-end, with a
friendly toot of his horn, in the morning, and in the evening will go out of his way to put everyone down as near their door as possible, should the weather be bad. He does messages of every
imaginable kind, from posting a letter to handing in a sewing-machine for repair and will load his bus with anything from bags of cement to tomato-plants and day-old chicks, in season. For everyone
he has a cheery word of greeting, and should a housewife overspend herself and have nothing left for her fare he’ll soothe her with kindly laughter and say, ‘Ach, I’ll get it
again’. Small wonder, then, that such a man took us safely up and round by the loch, though his headlights and wind-screen were almost obscured by driven snow.

The Abriachan schoolroom was another oasis, a positive wonderland to come upon on such a night. A huge fire was blazing in the open hearth and a Christmas tree stood, glittering in a corner.
Nearly all the children turned up, in spite of the storm, and it was a delight to watch their small, numbed faces opening like flowers in the light and warmth.

That was a memorable party; we played the Grand Old Duke of York and Blind Man’s Buff and all the other well-tried games; we sang carols and Gaelic songs and we ate hot pies and iced cakes
and drank scalding tea. There was a tinkling of bells outside, a huge knocking on the door and Santa Claus came in with a toy for each delighted child.

We were loath to button ourselves into our coats for the walk home, but to our astonishment we found ourselves emerging into a still, crystal world. The wind had dropped, the sky was gleaming
with stars, the hills seemed enormous and remote, under their covering of shadowed white, as we walked home briskly and happily over the crisp snow. Helen sat drowsily content in the candle- and
fire-light. I carried her to bed and we both slept till the bellowing of hungry cows woke us in the morning.

CHAPTER XVII

THE STILL CENTRE

J
IM
came home for a brief spell on New Year’s Eve, but we were both too tired to stay up all evening. We went early to bed, after setting the
alarm-clock for just before midnight. When it rang, we got up, poked the kitchen fire into a blaze and drank a toast in our dressing-gowns. Jim went out to fire the traditional shot from the gun,
to warn the evil spirits away, and we crept back under the blankets. He had to go off again later that day. Helen took his comings and goings very calmly. She loved his company, for he could enter
completely into her world. He could tell her the most fascinating stories, he could invent games out of nothing at all and he could set her the sort of problems she loved to work out in arithmetic
or geography. Geography was her special passion. ‘Could an elephant’, Jim would ask solemnly, ‘walk from Paris to the Cape of Good Hope, without getting his feet wet?’ Helen
would screw up her eyes, while she visualised the map, then rush to the atlas to confirm the route she had planned. The two of them were endlessly happy together, yet after Jim had gone Helen
settled quite calmly again.

For myself, I was too busy ever to feel that acute loneliness I had known sometimes, years before, when I lived among a city crowd. Sometimes, during the day, when I was alone and there was a
deep winter silence everywhere, I found myself having quite earnest conversations with Hope, the cow, or with Charlie or the hens. This might have led a chance visitor to assume that I was a bit
queer in the head! But I firmly believe that these creatures like the sound of the human voice, when it is not raised in anger. Hope certainly lets down her milk better after a friendly chat and
the hens ‘sing’ delightedly when you enter their quarters uttering a stream of nonsensical remarks.

Only once, while Jim was away, did I get a bit of a scare. I was sitting by the kitchen fire knitting a sock, late one evening, when I heard heavy footsteps coming round the gable of the house.
There was a scraping on the doorstep and the knob of the door was rattled. I thought—could it be Jim come home unexpectedly? He came whenever he could, even if only for a few hours, but he
always gave a shout outside so that I should know who it was. My heart jumping a little, I got up and slid back the bolt on the door. I opened it and found myself peering into the long, yellow face
of Charlie, the horse. Dear old Charlie! He liked to slip out of his stable whenever the door was not quite securely fastened. I stroked his nose and he stood, half in the kitchen, half out, while
I filled a pail with water and scattered oatmeal in it. He drank it gratefully and I backed him out again and heard him wander off into the near field. Many times after that he came along for a
late snack, and it was comforting to hear him pacing steadily round the house at night, like a policeman on the beat.