20

BAGREL

It had been my pleasure, while growing up as one of Perthshire’s agricultural travellers, to enjoy the rich vein of diversity among them that even as a youngster I was keenly aware of. To the outsider it was easy to imagine all of us were the same, but that was simply a myth. ‘We’re all Jock Thamson’s bairns,’ is a true saying, but who’s to say Jock didn’t put it around a bit?

Let me share some characters with you now, and a cup of tea might be a good idea at this point.

Now you’ve poured that tea or coffee, what better place to start than by the campfire, kettle boiling away. Auld Tam Troot had just brought home a great big bunch of kindling. Nancy, his spouse of forty years, was in the process of ladling his broth into a cracked bowl, when without warning a great muckle cow galloped right into their midst. We won’t linger on the spot as soup, bowl, ladle and burning water went heavenward, then showered back down to cover auld Tam, Nancy and their visitor.

Lurid oaths rent the sky, and that’s why we won’t tarry there. Instead it’s to a worried farmer trudging through fields of mushy gutters that we’ll go.

‘Last time I let yon ba’ heid o’ a man near ma coo. Every time she sees him, her backsprent rises intae the air, she shak’s her ba-hookie an’ awa she goes. Lord A’mighty, whit will ah dae without ma Sally? When I git ma hands on that wee bagrel, I’ll squash him like a worm.’

The ba’ heid he referred to was a tiny wee man, almost dwarflike, who tramped the country. He wasn’t a traveller, tinker, gypsy or vagrant, in fact nobody knew what group laid claim to him, because he couldn’t speak—as dumb as a mountain bawd [hare] was the wee man.

In glen areas he might have been looked upon as a ‘Broonie’, that mystical wee creature who, for a scone and a drink of milk, would do jobs around farmyards that no other hands would do. For instance, cleaning the hen pen and spreading the chicken dung onto fields. This foul-smelling stuff made even stones grow, such was its richness of compost. He’d clean the sties of dirty ‘roll-in-gutter’ pigs until they were spotless. In fact he’d undertake any job unfit for human nostrils without a word; just a wee bite and drink and then he’d be gone. The difference between our little lad and the Broonie was that the latter was expected to turn anyone who saw him to stone. This superstition forced him to live in caves or under trees, creeping out only under a night sky.

Well, that very morning, while our wee bagrel was simply minding his own business, not bothering a soul, his appearance at her field entrance had obviously stirred Sally into a panic. Her one-cow stampede, however, didn’t half make a mush of Tam and Nancy’s tent—flattened to a pancake, it was.

Tam caught the tired cow and was tying her to a tree, when our little man came whistling up the road, totally unaware of the havoc in his wake.

Nancy, like everyone else who laid an eye upon him, smiled, but didn’t leave her stare too long upon his face which, and God forgive me for saying this, was not very bonny! Well, for starters, he’d a wart on his chin like a river stone, and a huge hump on his back. His windswept black and grey hair, thick and wiry with white streaks, danced down around his waist. His eyeballs rolled in their sockets as if they had a life of their own. But the beauty of him was in his strength. Some say he could lift a raging bull with one kick. Maybe that’s why very few approached the bagrel, who stood four feet tall on a Sunday.

When he saw the devastation and debris scattered throughout the usually tidy campsite, he lifted his shoulders, throwing his hands out and palms up, asking with his gesture, ‘what happened here?’

Still not making full eye-contact, Nancy used her hands to imitate horns, and slapped her bum to indicate a large back end such as a cow might sport.

The wee man smiled, making his acknowledgement with a thumbs-up.

Auld Tam came back from securing the cow and said his hellos. ‘Gi’e the bagrel a drink o’ tea, Nancy,’ he said.

His able spouse had already built the fire and refilled the kettle, which was just beginning to boil, as a very irate farmer rushed into their midst. On seeing the reason for the disappearance of his only cow he lifted his cromach to bring it down upon the bagrel’s back. ‘You bloody half a man, I’ll tan ye for spurring ma coo, the devil’s in ye!’

‘No in ma company, fairmer,’ hissed Tam, wrenching the stick from his hand.

‘I own this land ye’re campit on, Tam, an I swear if ye so much as lift a finger tae stop me whipping this curse frae a witch’s womb, I’ll mak sure ye niver set a fit here agin!’

Tam knew full well there wasn’t a place for miles where he and Nancy could winter-settle, yet he was a godly man; and what kind of sleep would his conscience allow him, if he let a poor defenceless creature take a whipping for simply being ugly? And he had never believed stories of the wee man’s brute strength; how could someone so small hurt anyone?

‘Sorry, fairmer, about yon cow o’ yours, but I canna stand back and see a six-fitter like yersel take a rochet temper oot on a wee bagrel.’ He turned and threw the stick into a now blazing fire.

‘Ye kin pack whit ye have and be off my land within the hour; an’ thank that lump o’ useless flesh fer yer ruin,’ the farmer said, pointing at the dumb dwarf who seemed rigid with fear. Red-faced and spitting with temper, he turned about and was soon gone to console himself at the loss of Sally.

‘Well, handy man you are, eh Tam? Now where dae we go with the first snows roaring down frae the north? You’ve left us hameless, and all because o’ him.’

Tam shook his head at Nancy’s lack of tact towards a helpless dwarf who never bothered a soul, and began gathering what little hadn’t been crushed by the cow. Then something dawned on him: where was the wee lad? In all the commotion they had failed to see him slip away after the farmer left.

‘Now look what’s happened, the wee leprechaun has gone aff in the huff. I bet he’ll pit a curse on us for you being sae hostile.’

‘Don’t talk rot. Anyway, he’s no’ a pokey man and I blame your Irish mother for teaching you rubbish like that.’

‘Rubbish is it? What about you, feart tae look at the wee man in case ye turned tae stone.’ As the pair argued back and forth among the ruins of their canvas home, they realised that something else had slipped their mind—the cow. Tam had forgotten to show the farmer she was safe.

‘Go, take her back to the field. Then tell him what happened. He’ll let us stay if he thinks you found the cow. Tell him you fought wi’ the dwarf and saved it. Go on, Tam.’

Tam listened to his wife and thought long and hard. ‘Aye, I’d best get up tae yon farm, cap in hand,’ he said eventually. ‘Yet what kind of rat would I be if I lied like that? No, I’ll just say the cow ran through us. Mind you, if thon wee dwarf hadn’t frightened her, then she wouldn’t have bolted oor tent. Bloody wee pest, thon leprechaun, he disnae even deserve a drap tea. Pitting fear intae a puir chowing-cud cow. Ah think he might be in cahoots wi’ a “Green Man.” I’ve niver telt ye this, Nancy, but once ma mither saw one crawling along the grun, cracking tae an adder.’

Totally convinced now that the cause of their predicament lay at the small feet of a dumb dwarf, he led the cow into her field before walking gingerly to face the farmer. He must have seen him coming, because the door near-on lifted its hinges as he swung it open.

‘I telt you tae get aff my land, Tam Troot, I wisnae joking. Noo, is it the back o’ ma hand or will ye go quietly?’

‘Calm doon noo, fairmer, ye ken how much ye mean tae me an Nancy. This morning, if yer prize cow hadnae taken flight at the sight o’ yon horrible wee man, then life wid hae been a gey sight milder. He put the evil eye on me, ye ken, had it stiff intae ma heed.’ (Tam’s godly scruples had fallen by the wayside.) Tam had passed the point of no return; lies fell from his forked tongue and he continued unashamedly. ‘Why dae ye think I had tae defend him frae yer guid self? I had nae choice. He warned me and Nancy we’d be turned tae cauld marble if we let you belt him. But it’s alright now, man, because I battled hard wi’ the devil and chased him aff. He had the power in him, ye ken, but me—well, I said tae myself, “yon fairmer’s a good man, and this demon isnae getting tae steal his cow.” Go see for yourself, she’s safely in her field.’

‘Safe, ye say, Tam? Ma Sally is alright?’

‘Aye, man, and no’ a scratch on her.’

Chest puffed like a champion cock, Tam led the farmer down the track to where he’d just left Sally. He could see Nancy coming to meet him, in the hope that things were now sorted. A cold wind blowing from the north, flaked with snow, made her cover her head with a grey shawl. They met together at the field gate, she, her husband and the farmer.

‘I hope ye’re telling me the truth, now, Tam, for I’ll no’ be pleased if she’s a mark on her.’

By now the wind had dropped slightly. The snow thickened and fell around them as they stood unable to think, let alone speak about what stood before them. Sally had stopped chewing. And it wasn’t for the lack of food, because plenty of the best hay lay scattered around her stone hooves; she would never eat another morsel of anything again, that solitary statue of grey granite.

Stunned into silence, they then turned slowly when they heard a noise behind them. The wee man was jigging in the air and laughing hysterically. Then with a puff of blue reek he turned his behind towards them, patted it and was gone, never to be seen again.