15
This next tale has been a favourite of mine for over fifty years. I have shared it with children from Australia, Ireland, Wales, England and most of Scotland.
It’s about a piper named Sandy; a gentleman of the road who, as this story begins, found himself penniless and freezing cold in a storm on the last night of the year. Come on the road with him and see how his future was shaped by a dead man’s boots.
Sandy shivered from his hunched shoulders to his split-soled boots. Winter’s jaws were snapping and barking at his exposed heels as the north wind signalled an oncoming blizzard.
That year, as he’d done for most of his adult life, he had accompanied the drovers who herded many hundreds of Highland cattle from the island of Skye to the cattle market in Crieff. But never before had the beasts fetched such rock-bottom prices. Paying his men and laying aside next year’s cattle fund, the drove master was left with as bare a purse as he’d ever had. Poor Sandy was handed only a few pennies, with apologies and promises that the price of meat might be higher next year.
So there he was, with a paper-thin plaid, boots unable to keep out the fingers of Jack Frost, his toes turning blue with cold. Oh, he was in a terrible state right enough, but he was alive, and while the heart was beating, old Sandy kept up his hopes. It was Hogmanay, the last night of the year. It was a time for first footing, and who better to bring in the New Year in Scotland’s glens than a hardy piper?
At the mercy of the first gale-driven snow, Sandy saw a welcome sight. Far up on the hillside was a flickering light. Through the blizzard which was tearing like a raging bull into every corner of the land, he could dimly make out the low roof of a small croft. Warmth spread through him as he thought of the welcome that lay within that small house.
The light was still quite far away, and the storm was battering him hard, so he decided to rest for a minute behind a hedge of beech that stretched along one side of the road. As he pulled his threadbare plaid across his thin frame and curled his shaking knees up under his chin, he suddenly became acutely aware of the presence of another person. Sandy called out, to reassure whoever it was who was sharing his shelter. In case the person was up to no good, he assured the stranger he had no money or belongings worth stealing, so the best thing was just to say hello and be done with it. But his words remained unanswered.
Apart from the wind howling and a chorus of rustling dead beech leaves whirling around his head, no voice spoke in reply. Twice, three times he called out, so certain was he that someone else besides himself witnessed the mighty storm in the dark, while the devil danced a fearsome jig among gust-driven snow.
Now, Sandy wasn’t one to admit he was wrong. He felt the ground on either side of where he sat, shivering with cold. To the left, he touched stones, heather clumps and stumpy hedge roots – nothing. To the right, he repeated the process – but what was that: leather heels, he felt two boots! Running his hands along the boots he drew back in horror. The footwear was being worn by somebody. There were feet inside the boots, and legs above the feet. Oh no!
This was no person, however. Well, maybe at one time it had been, but now it was a corpse, dead as a dodo. Sandy apologised silently for disturbing the man’s last rest and quickly left the shelter of the bush.
However, when his feet sank into several inches of fresh snow and the chill sent him rigid, he became a desperate man. Desperate men do desperate things. Those boots with their toes pointing upwards were going nowhere; their master had no need of them. Boots, as Sandy saw it, are for living men, not dead ones. He must have them!
Going back, he felt under the hedge for the boots and tugged at them, but they were not for leaving their owner. Again and again he heaved and pulled, but they were frozen solid. The only way for the piper to get his new footwear was to cut them free. ‘Well, there’s a first time for everything,’ he thought, as he drew his dirk and wasted no time hacking off the boots – feet included.
From that moment, Sandy had only one thought in mind, to get away from there as fast as he could go. With the wind at his back, he had no problem making his way swiftly up the hill, towards what he was certain would be dinner and a wee dram to warm his innards.
Soon he was standing where the glow from the croft window shone its welcome light into the darkness and driving snow. He felt its warmth; at last he’d arrived. His Glengarry tammy and plaid were white with snow, but with a quick flick and shake he was ready to share Hogmanay and party away the night with the good folk of the house. He rapped at the door.
When the woman of the place saw him on her doorstep, however, she refused to allow him to set a foot in her home. She was adamant that she never allowed his kind over her threshold. No matter how much he begged and pleaded, it made no difference; she held firm at her doorstep, with the howling gale nearly drowning out her voice. Her husband joined her and looked Sandy up and down. At last he said, ‘He’s a simple piper. He’s harmless enough. Let him sleep out the storm in the barn.’
‘You heard him,’ said the woman. ‘Now, take yourself away into the barn, and remember – in these parts we rise early, so make certain you’re gone when we get up.’ These words and a slammed door told him there would be no food or dram for him to bring in that New Year. Never mind, he was alive, and maybe in the morning someone would give him a bit of bread to fill his empty belly.
Whistling blasts of freezing wind filled the barn with sounds of doom, and had it not been for the friendly old cow munching away in a trough full of oats he’d have been totally miserable. ‘Hello, old lady,’ he said, removing his tammy and bowing stiffly. ‘I hope you won’t mind if I sleep here in your grand mansion this bleak night.’
The cow continued chewing, unmoved by his presence. Her face had no leer of murder about it, unlike that of her mistress, who would no doubt prove a woman of her word if she found him there in the morning. Another pleasing sight was the hot steam coming from the cow’s nostrils – just the thing for defrosting frozen feet. Sandy wasted no time in plonking the dead man’s boots, feet and all, into the cow’s trough, and making himself a bed in the straw for the night.
Exhausted, he fell into a deep sleep, not moving a muscle until the cock crowed for the new dawn. Swiftly removing strands of straw from his clothes, the piper looked inside the cow’s trough. Her warm breath through the night had certainly done the job. The boots, with bones, blood and dead flesh intact, had completely defrosted.
In no time the piper had the gory feet removed and the boots on. Brilliant, he thought, they fitted like gloves. Never had he owned such well-made boots. They were of calf leather, part-laced with strong metal eyelets. ‘That poor soul, whoever he was, hadn’t had much wear from these grand boots,’ he said to himself, walking up and down the length of the barn.
As the thought of dead man flashed into his head, he felt uneasy. ‘What if he’s on his way to heaven and him without feet? I know, I’ll give him my old boots. He can come up to this barn as a ghost and be joined again with his feet before journeying to the mansion in the sky.’ No sooner said than done. He put the dead feet into his old worn out boots.
The next moment, the sound of a door slamming filled him with horror. It could only be the man or woman of the house, coming to see if he had overstayed his welcome. There was no time to escape, so he hid again in his bed of straw and prayed that whoever it was didn’t have a gun!
From the sound of the feet in the cobbled courtyard it was the woman who was coming to the barn. He listened intently, keeping perfectly still. The footsteps came into the barn and then stopped. For a moment there was no sound at all. Just when he thought she’d found the place empty and gone off, there was an almighty scream. Her husband heard her and came rushing to her aid. ‘My dear,’ he said, sounding deeply shocked, ‘I thought for an awful minute that piper chap had attacked you!’
‘That piper chap?’ She stared at him with as furrowed a brow as he’d ever seen on his wife’s rugged face, ‘He’ll never bother anyone again. See there in the trough, your mad cow has eaten him!’
When the master saw what was lying in the feed trough, he scolded the cow for eating a smelly old piper.
‘You must bury him, husband,’ ordered the farmer’s wife. ‘Our good neighbours will be here today, and if so much as a hair is found, they’ll suspect foul play. Now, do as I say, and get those bones and boots buried!’
Reluctantly the man took the pair of boots and their contents down to the bottom of the garden and proceeded to dig a hole, watched all the while by his nagging wife.
Back in the barn, Sandy had decided enough was enough. His belly was not only empty but dry as well. He needed to be fed and watered. This couple, she with her cutting tongue, he a snivelling coward, were provoking this desperate piper to commit another reckless crime. Into his mouth went the untuned chanter, a weapon to be reckoned with, even though certain folk hadn’t got respect for the national instrument of old Scotia. With all his remaining strength the piper filled the bag with air and pushed into it with bony elbows. A screech, not unlike that of the ancient banshee washing funeral shrouds in a lonely fog-covered river, rent the air.
All that remains to tell is that the farmer and his wife ran off as fast over the hill as if the devil himself was after them, scattering white snow in their wake, and they have never been seen again – not so much as the tip of a nose. As for our hero – well, he’s got himself a fine wee croft with a warm bed and as much food as will last him a long, long time. Oh yes, and not forgetting the cow, with her milk, butter and full fat cheese. He’s a happy man indeed.
If you find yourself facing the last night of the year when a blizzard is howling through your street, remember Sandy!