Bruach Blend (3 page)

‘They behave more like humans,' observed Anna Vic with a laugh. ‘I'm thinkin' you'll be glad when the Department of Agriculture send us another bull instead of Crumley. Maybe she'll not get so fond of the next one.'

Admittedly the ‘affair of the heart' between Bonny and Crumley was inconvenient from the point that Bonny, having had two early calvings, would undoubtedly be calving early again next year and in Bruach, though the occasional early calving was allowable for a winter milk supply, the lateness of spring grass and the consequent sparsity of feeding made a succession of early calvings undesirable. Any crofter who allowed it to happen was considered to be guilty of a reckless disregard for the well-being of his animals.

I ought to have agreed wholeheartedly with Anna Vic's observation but Bonny's love for Crumley was so touching I could not really be sure that I would be glad when another bull was substituted.

‘Did you not notice she was bullin' this mornin' when you saw her?' Tearlaich asked. I shook my head. I had not noticed presumably because I had no long experience in the detection of such conditions. However, on reflection, I remembered she had been a little restless when I milked her.

‘Aye, well I doubt you'll be seein' your bed before sunrise,' he confirmed.

I shrugged my shoulders. ‘I suppose I'd better leave this stick behind me,' I said. ‘People tell me a stick is like a red flag to Crumley.'

‘Aye, he's cross right enough when he wants to be,' Tearlaich admitted. ‘But, ach, I doubt you've any need to worry yourself. When Crumley's been with your cow for a while he's too shagged out to care.'

To go so far alone late at night to milk an amorous cow which was being closely attended by an equally amorous bull was by no means an inviting prospect but I knew I dared not entertain for a moment any idea of leaving Bonny unmilked. I had to go because if I missed milking her there was a risk of mastitis developing and, due largely to my ignorance, Bonny had nearly died with mastitis and other complications shortly after she had given birth to her second calf. I had nursed her successfully through that illness but I had no wish to repeat the experience. It had been a time of pain and suffering for Bonny and of anguished vigilance and nauseating toil for me. At the onset of her illness the vet, who, justifiably, regarded me as an empirical crofter, had given her no more than a slim chance of survival. ‘She's pretty bad,' he had warned me brusquely. ‘It's a pity you couldn't have got word to me sooner.' Censure threaded its way into his voice.

‘The telephone wires were down after the gale,' I reminded him miserably.

‘Aye.' His eyes appraised the general apathy of Bonny's appearance. ‘It's a pity,' he repeated. ‘She was a fine young beast right enough.' His use of the past tense was like a punch in the chest.

I swallowed hard before I could speak. ‘I'll nurse her,' I was quick to assure him.

‘Maybe, but even supposing I save the cow I haven't much hope of saving her udder and what use to you will be a milk cow without an udder?' His voice was crisply matter of fact. I stroked Bonny's neck while I listened to the vet giving me the cold hard facts, but my mind rebelled at the principal that because an animal can no longer perform the function for which it is bred it should therefore forfeit its life. I felt a brief flare of antagonism towards the vet. It was Bonny he was talking about, I wanted to remind him. Bonny who trusted me; who would come when I called; who would give me her milk as willingly as if I were her calf; who would stand contentedly allowing me to rest my binoculars on her back while I scanned the moors. Bonny, whose affectionate licking had to be endured even though her tongue was like a steel file on my flesh. Oh, she could be as cantankerous as any other cow at times but she was still my Bonny; the first cow I had ever had and I could not bear the thought of letting her die.

‘I want you to try and save her,' I insisted.

I thought I detected a glimmer of sympathy in the vet's glance. ‘Aye well, I'll do what I can,' he promised without much optimism. ‘But what you must try to understand,' he went on to explain, ‘is when a cow gets sick like this it more often than not just gives up without a fight. Very often I could cure the sickness in the beast but what kills them is the lack of will to live and there's nothing anybody can do about that.'

As he set about giving her a drench I vowed that not only would I nurse Bonny to the best of my strength and ability but I would also try by the force of my own will to instill in her the will to recover. For the next few days I spent most of my time in the byre, stroking and patting her; fondling her cold ears and talking to her, urging her to resist the fate which threatened her. Every hour or so I brought hot water from the house and bathed her fevered udder and subsequently, though my stomach retched and heaved as I performed the task, I regularly swabbed away the sloughing, stinking gangrenous flesh before massaging ointment into the exposed and bleeding rawness beneath. At night, overcoming my dread of insects and mice, I wrapped myself in blankets and lay on a bed of hay beside her stall, sleeping and half-sleeping and always conscious of her grunts and heavy breathing. Sometimes I wakened to the touch of her wet nose and her warm foetid breath as she explored my face or to the rasp of her rough confiding tongue on my hand. In response I murmured endearments and encouragement until her discomfort seemed to ease or until I had talked myself into an anxiety-ridden mockery of sleep. In the mornings, instead of feeling refreshed I was usually swaying with tiredness and my eyes grew so heavy with lack of sleep I feared my drooping eyelids were in danger of tripping me up as I walked. Perhaps it is the height of eccentricity to sleep with a cow but I believed she was comforted by my presence and I sensed that such a communion developed between us that when the time of crisis came she was sustained by my own determination that she should live.

The vet began to look less pessimistic and cautiously increased Bonny's chance of recovery to an even fifty-fifty. But then came the night I should never forget; the night when I was awakened by a sensation that I was being pushed out of bed and, sitting up, I discovered with a huge surge of elation that Bonny was not only up on her feet but eager for some of the hay which comprised my makeshift bed. She was determinedly pulling out choice mouthfuls of it from under my body. With a light heart I quickly vacated the bed and pushed the remaining hay into her manger. She ate greedily and before I left her to go for my own breakfast she was showing the most anxiously watched-for sign of recovery in a cow – she was chewing her cud!

When the vet next called I was able to greet him with a relieved smile. ‘Thank you for pulling her through,' I said.

‘Thank yourself,' he replied. ‘You must have given her plenty of attention.'

I was tempted to tell him I had slept in the byre at night with Bonny but decided against it. He regarded me quizzically. ‘Are you used to nursing?' he asked.

‘Certainly not,' I denied. ‘I've always regarded myself as being one of those “faint at the sight of blood” women. Far too squeamish to be a nurse.'

‘Aye, that's what I thought,' he admitted. ‘When you said about saving the cow I thought to myself the gangrene would be too much for you. It's a nasty job even for one that's accustomed to it.'

I did not tell him that the stench of it had made me feel so sick there were days when I could not eat because of it. I shrugged. ‘It had to be done, didn't it?'

The vet seemed to be looking at me with a new respect. ‘Aye,' he agreed, ‘it had to be done and it seems it was worth it. After all,' he added, ‘she still has half an udder.'

It was that pathetic half-udder I was now on my way to milk and as I made towards the strath where Tearlaich had reported seeing Bonny I allowed myself to think for a moment or two how comforting would have been the prospect of returning home after milking as I had planned earlier with nothing more demanding to do than a little knitting or sewing while listening to a radio play. I dismissed the thought before it made me discontented since with Bonny the other side of the strath I knew only too well that not only the play but the night's broadcasting would be finished before I could hope to get back. But of such upsets was the crofting life composed and though I feared I should never be able to accept them with the same tranquil philosophy as my neighbours I was aware that at last I was learning to limit my reactions to no more than lukewarm resentment.

The corncrakes were craking to one another among the rough grass where the croft land merged inconspicuously with the moors, and the moors themselves when I reached them were resonant with the sad, goat-like drumming of snipe. A gentle chill in the evening air had driven the midges back into their underworld among the grass and heather and I walked unmolested, enfolded in the blended sun-dried scents of bog myrtle and wild thyme, sedges, bedstraws and moss which fringed the path. The coolness lay against my hot sunburned cheeks like clean, well-pressed linen; the dew seeped invigoratingly through the openwork of my sandals; youthful bracken wiped my bare legs with fresh green fronds. Before me the familiar peaks of the hills were like enormous black thorns piercing the fiery sunset while below the faintly rippled loch was like a spread net which had caught the afterglow and was holding it as its prize. The flawless beauty of the scene was like an anodyne assuaging all tiredness and irritation and I abandoned myself to its all-encompassing serenity.

There were times when I thought that ‘moors' was too gentle a term for the vast area of rock which surrounded the Bruach crofts. Treeless, fissured with peat bogs and smeared with a few tatters of vegetation they had a threadbare look like an old, abandoned carpet. Yet despite their austerity they were beautiful, abounding with shape and form and though they were drab there was nevertheless an enormous variety of colours concealed among the drabness. There were burns, too, rollicking down to the sea as only Highland burns can rollick, and sheltered corries, walled by rock slabs and floored not with soft grass but with springy turf crisp with bents and sedges. In the summer twilight the apparent severity was softened and the moors invested themselves with an almost tangible aura of mystery which made even the mundane trudge to milk a cow into a small adventure. Long acquaintance had not made me insensible of their mystery; indeed there were still times when I was almost frightened out of my wits by it but in general I had come to regard it as I regarded an illusionist trick; intriguing but explicable; compelling but not un-nerving. For example, I knew now that the cowled monk-like figure silhouetted against the skyline and seeming to block my path was in reality only a slim weather-chiselled pinnacle of rock which by day had no mysticality; that the human-sounding cough which might suddenly slash the heavy silence of a deserted corrie probably came from some old ewe which had temporarily forsaken the rest of the flock to seek a quiet refuge where she might give birth to her lamb; that the appreciative-sounding whistle which seemed to come from just behind my shoulder was likely to be the call of a golden plover flying low overhead and that the spine-chilling hissing close at hand would, on investigation, prove to be nothing more menacing than the dialogue between a couple of courting or combative hedgehogs.

I was accustomed to being alone on the moors at night, but as I picked my way now round the cowled monk I felt a sudden stab of apprehension, for there, hurrying towards me along the narrow track, was the figure of a man carrying a stick. I knew instantly from his gait that he was no Bruachite and since it was unusual because of the treacherously narrow paths for a stranger to be on the moors at this time I surmised immediately that there had been an accident to some climber in the hills and that this was either a hiker or a climber hurrying to get help. I stepped aside so as not to impede him and as he approached I realized he was neither a hiker nor a climber. To my astonishment I saw that he was wearing a town suit and that the ‘stick' he was carrying was no stick but a furled umbrella. I was flabbergasted. An umbrella on the Bruach moors? With unashamed curiosity I watched him draw nearer and as I saw him more clearly I was struck by the pallor of his skin even in the evening light and by the cold glazed look in his eyes.

‘Good evening,' I murmured, assuming he was English. But he ignored me and passed without a glance or a word, hurrying along the path as if he was both deaf and panic stricken, his eyes looking to neither left nor right and his brow deeply furrowed. For a moment I was aware of a prickle of disquiet but I dismissed it. Incongruous as he appeared, the man was real enough, of that I was certain, since there had been a detectable smell of stale tobacco about him as he passed me. But, I asked myself, why, garbed as he was and carrying an umbrella, was he out on the moors so late at night? Where had he come from? Why, since I am not a tiny waif-like creature who could easily melt into a background, had he passed me by so unseeingly? If he was a tourist why, oh, why on a night like this was he not dawdling, gloating on the incredibly beautiful sunset and yielding to its demand for adulation instead of hurrying as if to get away from it all? I pondered the incident for some time as I continued on my way, but realizing that I would only need to mention the man to Morag when I saw her for a perfectly rational explanation of his presence to be forthcoming, I shrugged away the thought of the hurrying man and dwelt on my own good fortune in not having to hurry anywhere at all. It mattered little to me that it would be well after midnight when I returned home from milking. I could always sleep late the next morning if my body demanded I should do so and thereafter I could work my day according to Bruach time, which was a time that only nuzzled at one gently, unlike city time, which has sharp teeth and gnaws endlessly at one's contentment. And if, because of the threatened change in the weather, there was some urgency about a task, then I should hurry in the Bruach way; not scurry, which again is the artificial and unnecessary hurry that city people like to indulge in and which I liked to think I had completely forsworn.