Jack and the Devil's Purse (10 page)

Jack and his mother had forty gold sovereigns and they had a good time o’ it. All because he put the peats in the fire with his foot!

It was very late when the old beggar-man came to the rich farmyard. He had travelled far that day, he was tired and hungry.

He said to himself, ‘I must find somewhere to sleep’, because it was snowing. There were many buildings in this farm by the side-road. He said, ‘I will go up here, maybe the farmer will help me. He has many barns, he has many sheds. He could probably give me somewhere to lie down.’

So the old beggar-man walked up to the farmhouse and he knocked on the door.

The farmer was just after finishing his tea, and his wife said, ‘There’s someone at the door.’

And the farmer said, ‘Well, I’ll go and see who’s there.’

He walked out and there at his door stood an old beggar-man with his old grey hair and his old ragged coat. He had travelled for many miles.

And the farmer said, ‘What do you want, old man?’

He said, ‘Please, sir, I’m just an old beggar. Would you please, could you help me?’

‘What do you want of me?’ said the farmer.

‘Look, just a shed, or a barn or any place you could let me lie for the night. It’s a cold night and it’s snowing. I’m hungry and tired, but just a place to lie down would be enough for me for the night, just some place to shelter.’

And the farmer said, ‘You’re a beggar! Old man, I need my barns for my cattle. The woods are fit for you. Go and sleep in the wood, old man, we shelter no beggars here. My barns are for my cattle, not for you, old beggar-man. Go and sleep in the wood! This is not for you.’

The old beggar just turned around. He said, ‘I’m sorry, sir.’ And he walked away.

The farmer closed his door.

But the courtyard of the farm was a big yard. And there were two ways leading from the yard; the road leading up to the farm and the road leading away from the farm. The old beggar walked among the snow coming down. And who at that moment was coming out from a shed but the farmer’s coachman!

In these days it was all horses and coaches, and there was a special shed made for the coaches. The man was just after cleaning up the farmer’s coach, his special coach that took him to the village and to the town. He had put the coach in the shed. And when he walked out the first person he met was the old beggar-man, who was walking down through the farmyard.

The coachman said, ‘Where are you going, old man?’

And the old beggar said, ‘I was up at the farmer, son. I was lookin for a shelter for the night, an’ I asked him to let me sleep in the barn or any shed he had, any shed, just for shelter from the snow. And he told me to go and sleep in the woods.’

‘Oh-oh,’ said the coachman, ‘you cannot sleep in the woods, old beggar-man. It’s too cold tonight. Let me help you.’

‘Your master will be angry,’ said the old beggar.

‘Never mind my master!’ said the coachman. ‘Come with me, one place I will take you to where he will never find
you. Come into my coach shed. I have just cleaned up the farmer’s coach. Come with me, old beggar, and the farmer will never find you there!’

And he took him into the coach shed, he opened up one of the farmer’s prize coaches.

He said, ‘Old beggar-man, it is comfortable in there. Go to sleep in there. Be out early in the morning and no one will ever know you’ve been there.’

So he put the old beggar in and he closed the door – a beautiful leather coach, all done up in beautiful leather. And the old beggar-man stretched himself out and went to sleep. The coachman went home to his wife and family.

The farmer inside the house went to bed. He went to sleep. But as he lay in bed and went to sleep he had a dream. He dreamt that he died and he went to Hell. And when he landed in Hell all the people that he knew in his lifetime, who had died before him, were all sitting around waiting their turn.

There was the Devil standing with a big pot of boiling lead and a ladle in his hand. And all the people round, all whom he had known who had died and he’d met in the market many years before, farmers he had known for many years, were all sitting around waiting their turn. One by one they were called up and the Devil took a ladle of boiling lead. They opened their mouths and they swallowed it. They were suffering in pain and they called in pain. One by one, till it came his turn.

And the Devil beckoned him up: ‘Come, farmer, it’s your turn next!’ And the Devil put the ladle in, in his pot of lead and said to the farmer, ‘Open your mouth – it’s your turn.’

The farmer opened his mouth and the Devil put a ladleful of boiling lead in his mouth. And he felt it going down in his throat, it was burning him, burning in his throat and it was
burning in his chest. And he said, ‘Oh! Oh God, what have I done for this? If only I had one sip of water to cool my mouth!’

Then he looked up. And there came an old beggar-man with two brass cans of water before him. He stood before the farmer.

The farmer said, ‘Please, I beg of you, please, old beggar-man, please, please! I beg of you, please, my mouth is burning, my throat is burning. Please give me one . . . even put your finger in, put one dreep on my tongue to cool my mouth!’

The old beggar-man said, ‘No! My master forbids me. I cannot give you one sip. No more than you could give me one night’s sleep in your barn.’ And then the old beggar-man was gone.

‘Oh-o-oh,’ said the farmer, ‘what have I done for this? Please, what have I done for this?’

And then he wakened up in his bed. ‘Oh! Oh God,’ he said to himself, ‘what have I done? That old beggar that’s in . . . that old beggar is probably in my barns, probably he’s smoking, probably he’s lightin his pipe an settin my barns on fire!’

He got up from his bed. He walked round all the sheds on his farm. But he never saw the old beggar. Then he saw a light in the coach house. He walked down, an’ he opened the door of the coach house.

Then he walked into the coach and he saw the old beggar lying there –
four hands holding two candles each beside the old beggar’s head and at his feet
. And the farmer was aghast. He walked back, backwards from the shed.

He said, ‘It’s the old beggar and he’s dead.’

He walked home, he went to his bed. But he never had another dream.

Next morning when he got up he called for the coachman. The coachman came before him.

He said, ‘Coachman, did you let an old beggar in my coach last night?’

The coachman said, ‘Yes, master. You can sack me if you want to. I don’t care. You can have my job. But I could not let an old beggar lie asleep in the snow.’

And the farmer said to him, ‘Sack you, my man? I’m not going to sack you in any way. I’m going to make you manager of my farm and everything I own. You can work it for me for the rest of your life. Tomorrow morning I want you to go down to the joiners and get a beautiful sign made telling the world –
TRAMPS AND BEGGARS WILL BE WELCOME
– and a bed and whatever they can eat. Put it at my road-end. And you can run the farm for me for the rest of my time.’

So the coachman got that done. He put a sign on the roadside at the farm saying,
TRAMPS AND BEGGARS WILL BE WELCOME
. But the farmer waited, and he waited and he waited for many, many years. Never a tramp or a beggar ever came to his doorway until the day he died.

And what happened to that farmer I’m sure you know as well as what I do.

Johnny McGill is a legend in the West Coast and many parts of Scotland forbye. But he was a great friend of the farmers, so let me tell you . . . My father used to sit at night-time and tell us stories in the tent away back home in Argyll when we were small and sometimes we would bring up the subject of Johnny McGill, whom he knew personally well back in the thirties; because my father had camped with him, and so had many of the Scottish Travelling folk, especially in Argyll, not so much in Perthshire. And of course they had strange stories to tell. Because Johnny McGill had came out of nowhere. He had a little handcart painted green that said
FROM LAND’S END TO JOHN O’ GROATS TEN TIMES ON FOOT
. He and his wife Mary didna have any children.

But the thing that disturbed most of the Travelling people at that time was the material that Johnny McGill carried with him; there were bottles and packages and things that he kept separated from his foodstuffs and other things because Johnny McGill at heart was a vet. Nobody knew where he came from. He was married to a Traveller woman, and of course the local Travelling women at that time always kept in contact with old Mary, because she saved up clothes for the children and she gave them things and she always had money when they had nothing. So they had no disrespect for old Mary; I think she was a McGregor.

But Johnny McGill had come out of nowhere, as I said. It was all right around the campfires, the Travellers would crack to him, they’d come over to him, but they had this thing in their head that he was a kind of a student or a kind of doctor that would get in touch with . . . because the burkers were in strong force at that time, and burkers were never far from the Traveller’s mind, the body-snatchers! . . . Johnny McGill was a kind of an agent for the burkers and this was just a front, this vet carry-on. But he was a great favourite with the farmers. And of course his name was well known on the West Coast.

So my story begins. One of Johnny’s stories begins in Argyll in Kilmichael Glassary. Between Kilmichael and Kilmartin there’s a little quarry where the Travellers used to stay. And of course a group of the Travellers was there in that quarry, my father included. Now Johnny McGill was, I say, a collector, not of any collectable material, but he liked to collect any kind of little animal that was hurt – frogs that were trampled on with horses, rabbits that were hurt with an old-fashioned car of some kind. He was even known to carry a deer on his little cart because it was hit and needing mended. Crows, jackdaws, pigeons – all the little animals. And when he was settled for a wee while, him and old Mary, farmers who knew of him would come and get in contact with him if they had a sick animal, he’d go along to them. And he became well known.

But anyway, there was a group of Travellers camped in the quarry in Kilmichael Glassary many years ago, just shortly after the 1914 war, and of course people were very strict about the Travellers in those days. The local police moved them on, they were a kind of a menace, they were beggars, they werenae thiefs, but they got the name of being thieves and children stealers, you know, all these things said
about the Travelling People. But actually they were honest, hard-working people. And of course the local landowners when they were pitched on their land, the first thing on their mind was to move them on to someone else’s property.

So this group of Travellers was camped in Kilmichael Quarry, which I’ve camped in many times myself, when the local landowner’s wife came along on horseback. And she saw this group of Travellers camped in the quarry, and she thought to herself, this is my husband’s property. Why do these people be in there in this place anyhow, what are they doing there? She knew, passed down, all the Travellers were thieves and children-stealers, and at night when people were sleeping they would steal and thieve. Which was just a lot of nonsense! But she had this belief in her head.

So she dismounted from her horse and she came over. She said, ‘What are youse people doing here?’

And a few of the women came up and said, ‘We’re resting, we’re camped here, this is an old traditional . . .’

‘This is not a traditional camping place; this is my husband’s property!’ And of course she came down off her horse and she lectured away to the Travelling people, told them they must move on, she would call the police, you know, naturally call the police, carry on, you must go on! And after a good lecture she mounted her horse and rode back. The Travellers paid no attention to her, she was just another woman.

But anyhow, it was summertime, in the late evening who should come along but her husband on the same horse! And when he came to the Travellers, he said, ‘I thought my wife had told you to move on this morning?’

And someone of the Travellers said, ‘We’ve things to do and we can’t move. We’ll move when we feel like it.’

But he said, ‘Look, I’m not so much worried about you moving on, but I was wondering if any of you had seen a ring? My wife was along here this morning.’

‘Oh,’ they said, ‘yes, your wife was along here and she gave us a lot of cheek and chat, you know.’

‘Well, she lost her wedding ring and it means so much to her.’

And camped close to the side of the road was Johnny McGill with his wife Mary and his little tent. And Johnny had rescued a crow, a black crow that had a broken wing. And he had carried it with him on his little cart for days and weeks. And he’d mended its wing the best he could but it still couldnae fly. And it became a kind of a pet with him, and it would hop around the fire, it was a novelty for the children. Johnny McGill’s crow!

The landowner said, ‘Look, I’m no worried about you moving on, but I’m more worried about my wife’s ring. She’s lost her ring.’

And then out from the crowd of Travellers, men standing around the fire, Johnny McGill stepped and he said to the man, ‘Sir, if I was you, I wouldn’t be riding that horse.’

And the young laird says, ‘Excuse me, what did you say?’

He said, ‘Sir, if I was you I wouldn’t be riding that horse.’

‘What’s wrong with the horse?’ he said. ‘It’s my horse, it’s my wife’s horse.’

‘Well,’ he says, ‘if I was you, I’d be more careful!’

He said, ‘What do you mean, man?’

He said, ‘Your horse is lame in the front left foot.’

Said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with my horse’s left foot.’

‘There’s something serious wrong with your horse’s foot and it’s going to get worse, and,’ he says, ‘can you excuse me a moment.’ And he walked over and he picked up the horse’s
foot and he looked at it. He says, ‘Where did you get your horse shod last?’

He said, ‘Of course my local blacksmith shoes my horse for me.’