Jack and the Devil's Purse (24 page)

He says, ‘What happened to your brother?’

‘Oh,’ she says, ‘he was killed down in London. Anyway, we’ll no speak about that.’

So Jack works all day, comes in, has his dinner. Works on in the afternoon again, has his supper. And he comes back in, goes to his bed.

Twelve o’clock he hears the feet coming down the stairs. He says, ‘Where they’re going tonight, I’m going with them!’

One old sister says to the other, ‘I think he’s sleeping, he’s no moving.’

Over to the side of the fire they go, open the door beside the wee grate, pull out the cowls. On their heads, ‘Hooch for London!’

Jack gets up out o’ the bed, runs to the fire. He opens the
oven and there’s one red toorie left. He pulls it on his head, ‘Hooch for London!’ he says. ‘Hooch for London!’

He travelled through the air at about a hundred miles an hour wi this cowl on his head and the two sisters in front o’ him. They circled round London and down – right through a window! And with the welt he got coming down, he didna ken any words to stop himself for landing, he was knocked out completely. See, they knew words for to cushion their blow, how to land, but he didnae. He landed after them.

When he wakened up, you know where he was lying? He was lying inside a cellar in the Royal Mint – and he was surrounded by thousands o’ bags of gold sovereigns! And his toorie was gone. So were the two old sisters. They were gone. But this is where they had been going, robbing the mint every night. Two witches! But Jack searched all around . . . the mint was locked, there was no way o’ him getting out – impossible!

So in the morning when the guards came down they got him sitting inside the mint. Now this was what had happened to their brother before, to the sisters’ old brother. Oh, Jack was in a terrible state now – he didna ken what to do with himself!

So the guards, they asked him how he got in. But he couldn’t explain. He said he didna ken how he got in. So in those days for stealing out o’ the mint, the penalty was death, sentenced to death. You were hanged in an open court out in the front o’ the public square.

Jack is arrested, taken out of the cellar o’ the mint, taken up to the court, tried and sentenced to be hanged for robbing the Royal Mint. And so many dozens o’ bags of gold that had gone a-missing – he got the blame o’ the lot.

But anyway, he lay in the jail for three days, till the day he was to be hanged. He was taken out, taken up the steps, the thirteen steps to the scaffold and put on the scaffold. The
hangman came, put the rope round his neck. And the minister came up to say two or three words to him before they hanged him.

The minister says to Jack, ‘John, you were sentenced to death for robbing the Royal Mint. Have you anything to say before ye get hanged?’

When up the steps to the scaffold runs this old lady! She says to the hangman, ‘Yes, I’ve got something to say!’ And she placed the cowl on Jack’s head, ‘Hooch for Skye!’ she said. The two of them were off!

And when Jack wakened up he was lying at the side of the fire back in the two old sisters’ croft. As he wakens up this old sister’s shouting to him, ‘Jack, get up! It’s time to get on wi your work!’

So Jack worked all week for the two old sisters, forgot all about it. He said, ‘I must have been dreaming – that never really happened to me – I must have been dreaming. Or, was my mother right . . . did I dream or did it really happen? But anyway, I must ask them!’

At the end of the week he said to the two old sisters, ‘Was I ever out o’ here?’

‘No,’ old Maggie says, ‘Jack, ye werena out o’ here. You worked well. You’ve been the best worker ever we had here. You did everything!’

‘But,’ he says, ‘was I no away from here, this place, during the night or anything? Did anything funny happen?’

‘Na! You slept like a lamb o’ God,’ she says. ‘You never were away from this place. Every morning we came down at breakfast time you were ay lying in your bed, and you were lying in your bed when we went to our bed at night. You’ve never been out of this place since you came – for a full week.’

‘Ah well, that’s funny . . . ach, it must hae been a dream I had. I dreamed that I landed in . . .’ he tellt her the whole
story. He landed in the mint and he was to be hanged till death. ‘And you,’ he says, ‘came.’

‘Ach Jack,’ she says, ‘you’ve been dreaming! The same thing happened to my poor brother. He had a dream like that too. But that’s the last we ever saw o’ him.’

So the old sister went away to get something for Jack, something for his breakfast. And he opened the oven and he keeked in. Inside the oven were three red toories, inside the oven!

He said, ‘I wasna dreaming.’ And he shut the door. She came back in.

‘Well,’ he says to the old sister, ‘that’s all your jobs finished now. I think it’s about time that I went home to see how my old mother’s getting on.’

‘Ah but, Jack,’ she says, ‘my sister has made up that bundle o’ clothes for you that belonged to my brother. I think they’ll do ye, just the very thing. You’re about his build. Wait, I’ll go an’ get ye your pay!’

So they gave him this big bundle of clothes to take back with him for his work. The two sisters went up the stairs and the one came down. She’s carrying these two wee leather bags in her hand.

‘There,’ she said, ‘Jack, there’s your pay. And that’s as much that’ll keep you and your old mother for the rest o’ your days.’

And Jack went away home to his mother and stayed happy for ever after.

And that’s the last o’ the wee story!

When I was about four years old I heard this story. My father told me the first time, and then my Uncle Duncan, a brother of my mother’s, told it to me a couple of years later. The tale is a popular one among the Highland folk, but the Travellers have their own way of telling it.