Graeme Burnet - His Bloody Project

I found myself swaying from the effects of the ale, but felt no shame in my condition. I ambled along the street, buffeted by the crowd and drawing disdainful looks from passersby. Archibald draped his arm over my shoulders and together we doffed our caps at all and sundry and thought ourselves the most delightful fellows. Toward the end of the road we reached the spot where Jetta had set out her goods. She looked quite aghast at my state of inebriation.

‘I hope, for your sake, that Father does not hear of your condition,’ she said in a low voice.

I ignored her remark and, with a gesture towards my companion, said, ‘May I present my friend, Mr Archibald Ross.’

Archibald made an elaborate bow. ‘Delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Macrae,’ he said. ‘There can be no fairer maiden in the parish.’ He then took hold of her hand, which she had not proffered, and kissed it. Jetta stared at him with astonishment, wondering, no doubt, how her brother could have come to make the acquaintance of such a charming fellow. Archibald stepped back to inspect Jetta’s wares. He assumed the air of a connoisseur, gently running items between his fingers and muttering appreciatively. Jetta seemed pleased by this attention and told us that not ten minutes before she had sold a shawl to a lady from the Big House for a shilling.

‘A shilling!’ said Archibald. ‘You are underselling your fine work, my dear.’

He then declared that he would buy the shawl he was holding for his mother and gave my sister two shillings for it. Jetta was greatly pleased and thanked him profusely. As Archibald was making his way from the stall, she gave me a shilling and whispered not to say a word to Father about her sales. I put the coin in my pocket and pursued Archibald into the crowd, pleased that I would later be able to invite him to the inn to drink more ale. We made our way beyond the village towards the Big House where the match was to take place.

‘Your sister is quite striking, but she dresses like an old crone,’ Archibald told me in a affable tone. ‘She will never find a husband attired in such unflattering garb. If a fellow sees a girl swathed in sackcloth, he has every right to assume there is good reason to conceal what lies underneath, ha ha.’

He made his familiar flourish with his pipe, which I now understood was intended to signify that whatever statement he had made was indisputable. I had to admit that there was some truth in his words and that if I looked upon Jetta with a dispassionate eye, she cut a less than appealing figure. As if to underline the point, there were in the vicinity any number of attractive girls bedecked in pretty dresses, their hair pleasingly pinned up, so that it was possible to see the smooth, pale skin of their necks.

Archibald then took the shawl he had bought, bundled it up and stuffed it into a bush. I was quite horrified and asked what he meant by such an act. Archibald shrugged and looked at me with a grin on his face.

‘Old chap, I would not give my dog such a rag to sleep upon. I only purchased it so that your sister might have a little money to buy herself some less dreary attire.’

I thought of the many hours that my sister had laboured to produce the shawl and felt quite wounded by my friend’s callousness. Thinking that Jetta might later see her work discarded in the bush, I ran back and retrieved it. It was snagged in thorns and I took some time to unpick it from the branches. The shawl was ruined but I folded it as carefully as I could and stuffed it inside my jacket. Archibald watched me with amusement.

‘What are you going to do with it now?’ he said when I caught up with him. ‘It’s quite destroyed.’

I was not inclined to answer. We continued in silence for some minutes. The shinty match, arranged at the behest of the laird, was to take place on a pitch that had been marked out in sawdust in front of the Big House. Spectators had begun to gather around the markings. After some minutes my ill feelings towards Archibald subsided. He must have sensed this as he set to talking again in a confidential tone.

‘I, myself, do not intend to seek a wife for some years. Why would young men like us restrict ourselves to one dish when there are so many to try?’ he said, glancing towards a group of girls. ‘If you sister spends her money wisely, I would consider taking her for a turn round the back of the inn. After the two shillings I gave her, she will no doubt feel somewhat obliged to me.’

He prodded me in the ribs with his elbow, and, having only the vaguest idea what he meant, I nodded in agreement. Lord Middleton’s guests sat on chairs which had been set out on the far side of the field. As this area was clearly for the gentry, the villagers spread themselves around the three remaining sides. A marquee had been erected and, as the game had not yet commenced, most of the men-folk loitered by its entrance. Archibald steered me into the tent, where he purchased two measures of whisky. We toasted and drank them down and by the time the spirit reached my stomach I had quite forgotten the incident with the shawl. The teams trotted onto the pitch and we took our place among the crowd, which had by now pressed itself so closely around the pitch that there was little need for the sawdust lines. There was a great deal of shouting from all sides.

Naturally, Lachlan Broad took the leading role in the team from the Point, roughly slapping his team-mates around the shoulders to rouse their passion. He cut an imposing figure as he marched towards the centre of the pitch, chest thrust out, his caman resting on his shoulder like an axe. The remainder of our team, Kenny Smoke excepted, was a sorry and bedraggled crew, most of whom looked as if they heartily wished to be elsewhere. Since I was a boy, I have greatly disliked all games and shinty strikes me as a particularly violent and farcical spectacle. At school I would loiter at the side of the pitch and run in the opposite direction if the leather came towards me. Despite the lack of able-bodied young men from our parish, such was my ineptitude that I had never been enlisted to take part in the match.

The game began in a clatter of sticks in the centre of the field. Two men immediately collapsed and were carried off, while the game thundered around them. Lachlan Broad got hold of the leather in the midfield and gave it a mighty whack towards the Applecross goal. He then strode across the turf to berate Dunkie Gregor, who was barely twelve years old, for not collecting his pass. In the meantime the leather was launched back upfield and, amid much cracking of sticks and bones, was fired through the goalposts. Lachlan Broad, to the laughter of the crowd, shoved Dunkie Gregor to the ground and ran back to chastise the rest of his team. The Applecross players celebrated their goal by swigging from a wooden quaich of whisky behind the goal. The longer the match went on the more it descended into violence, and the more vehemently the crowd exhorted their side to assault their opponents. The gentlemen seated on the far side of the field appeared to find the spectacle enormously amusing and cheered on the combatants with gusto. Archibald too applauded each new assault with increasing fervour. The crowd reached its peak of delight when an old woman took a caman hard on the side of her head and sank unconscious to the ground. In the end, the leather was quite forgotten and, with the crowd forming a close circle in the centre of the pitch, the teams took to battering each other around the head and legs with their sticks. And then, quite without warning, the battle subsided and the two teams were each acclaimed the winner by their supporters. The bloodied players were carried off at shoulder-height, passing vessels of whisky amongst them. Archibald and I followed in their wake, my friend enthusing about acts of particular brutality. A quaich was shoved into our hands and we drank deeply. The crowd now swirled around me and I proposed to Archibald that we return to the inn to take some more ale. He insisted that we stay awhile at the marquee as all the village girls were there and we might, he said, try our luck with them.