Jack and the Devil's Purse (4 page)

Out comes the woman: ‘Oh it’s yourself, Maggie,’ she says.

‘Aye.’

‘Ye back for the winter?’

‘Aye, I’m back for the winter.’

‘Well, ye’re just in time. I was cleaning up and haein a wee cup o’ tea. Come on in and hae a wee cup o’ tea wi me,’ she said. So this old hen woman liked old Maggie awful much. She said, ‘I’ll hae a look for some stuff to ye afterward.’ The old woman made her a cup o’ tea and gave her scones and cheese.

‘Oh, by the way, how is old John getting on?’ she says. ‘Is he keepin all right?’

‘No,’ says Maggie, ‘he’s no keepin all right, to tell ye the truth. There’s something far wrong with him.’

Oh, God bless me,’ says the old henwife, ‘he’s no ill is he?’

No,’ says the old woman, ‘he’s no ill. No ill nae way . . . he’s worse than ill – he’s demented. And bad and wicked.’

‘Well,’ says the old henwife, ‘it’s a droll thing. I’ve kent old John for many’s a year. He used to come here and dig my garden and cut sticks for me, do a wee bit job for me. And there’s no a nicer old man that ever walked the country. Everybody in the district has got a great name about him.’

‘Well,’ Maggie says, ‘he’s a changed man today. Ever since he found that
coat
.’

‘What coat?’ says the old henwife.

So the old woman up and tellt her the story.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘did he look the pockets out?’

‘Aye, he looked the pockets out.’

She said, ‘What was in the pocket o’ the coat?’

‘A sixpence.’

‘Ah,’ the old henwife said, ‘a sixpence, aye . . . What kind o’ coat was it?’

She tellt her: ‘Long and black, velvet neck, velvet pockets and four black-horned shiny buttons. And to mak it worse, the night he brung it back old John went outside for a wee walk to hisself, an’ I looked. As low as my mother,’ she says to the old woman, ‘I’ll no tell you a lie, but I could swear on the Bible these four buttons turned into four eyes and they were winkin and blazin at me!’

‘God bless me,’ says the old henwife, ‘where did he get it?’

Maggie says, ‘He found it on the bridge, the haunted bridge goin to the village.’

‘Oh aye,’ said the old woman, ‘hmmm. Well, I’ll tell ye, the morn’s Sunday and I’m goin to the church to the village.
Would it be all right if I take a wee walk in and see you on the road past?’

‘I wish to God you would, and try and talk some sense into him,’ she says.

‘I’ll drop in and hae a wee crack to old John on the road past when I’m goin to the church.’

‘All right,’ says Maggie.

So the henwife gave the old Traveller woman eggs and butter and a can o’ milk and everything she needed. She bade her farewell and away went Maggie home to the camp.

When she came home the old man’s sitting cross-legged with the coat beside him. He wouldn’t hardly speak to her. No fire, his face no washed or nothing. And his two eyes were rolling in his head. The old woman kindled the fire and made him some tea. She offered . . .

‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m no wantin nothing fae ye. Don’t want nothing fae ye, not nothing at all!’

‘God bless me, John,’ she said, ‘that’s no a way to carry on. What’s wrong wi ye?’

‘There’s nothing wrong wi me. What’s wrong with
you
?’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘there nothing wrong with
me
.’

But anyway, that night again the old woman wouldn’t let him put the coat over the bed. And they argued all night about it. The old man gave in at last. He flung it at the foot o’ the bed.

But next morning the old woman got up again, made a cup o’ tea. The old man took a cup o’ tea, nothing else, hardly speaking, just snapping at every word she spoke to him.

‘Well, John,’ she said, ‘there’s something far wrong with you, since ever you found that coat. As low as my father, that is
the Devil’s coat
!’

‘I’m no carin,’ he said, ‘s’pose it’s
the Devil’s father’s coat
. I’m keepin it!’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘if you keep it, you canna keep me.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘if it comes to the choice, you ken where your family is. You can go and stay with them – I’ll stay wi my coat.’

The old woman couldn’t see what to do with him. But they were still arguing away when up comes the old henwife with her wee hat and coat on and her handbag in one hand, her prayer book and Bible in below her oxter. It was only two steps off the road to the wood where the old man and woman were staying. The old henwife stepped in.

She said, ‘Hello, Maggie, how are ye?’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘hello!’

She spoke to old John, ‘Hello, John, how are ye?’

‘Oh, I’m no so bad, I’m no any better wi you askin anyway! Ye’ll be up here for me to do some mair cheap work for ye – work for you for nothin.’

‘No, John,’ she says, ‘I’m no up tae gie ye mair work for nothing.’ The old woman was dubious right away. The old man was never like this before. ‘To tell ye the truth, John, I’m a bit worried. Maggie was down crackin to me yesterday and she tellt me about the coat you found at the bridge.

He said, ‘She had nae right tellin ye about the coat. I warned her not to tell naebody about it.’

‘Well, John,’ she said, ‘I want to see it.

He said, ‘Do you want to . . . do ye ken somebody belongin to it?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I dinna ken naebody belongin to it. But I want to see it.’

So the old man went out and he got the coat. He held it up.

The old henwife came up close to him: she said, ‘Hold that up by the neck!’

He held it up. She looked it up and down. She looked at it
a long, long while. She could fair see it was just sleek and shining like sealskin.

She says, ‘John, what did you do with the sixpence you got in the pocket o’ it?’

‘Oh,’ he says, ‘did that old bitch o’ mine tell ye that too? Well, I’ve got it in my pocket and I’m keepin it.’

She says, ‘John, I want ye to do something for me.’

He says, ‘What is it?’

She says, ‘I want you to put that sixpence back in the pocket and hold up the coat!’

The old man looked at her for a long while. But something came over him when he looked at her . . . the way the old henwife looked at him. And he got kind o’ calm and quiet. He held up the coat by the neck. He dropped the sixpence in the coat pocket. The old man opened the other pocket and the old woman dropped in the Bible.

Well, when she dropped the Bible into that coat pocket the coat jumped about ten feet in the air! And the arms started to flap, and it was up and down and running about same as it was demented. Till the old woman said to old John:

‘Run and catch it! Stand on it!’

The old man got a terrible fright and old Maggie got a terrible fright. The old man was shaking like the leaf o’ a tree and so was the old woman. The old man began to realise now there was something far wrong with this coat.

So the old man stood on it with his feet. And the old woman leaned down. She put her hand in the pocket and took the Bible out.

‘Now, John,’ she said, ‘I’ll tell ye; I’m goin to the church. You walk along with me to the bridge. Take that coat wi ye.’

Old Maggie said, ‘I’m no bidin here myself. I’ll walk wi yese.’ So, the three o’ them walked along to the bridge.

And the old woman said: ‘Where did ye find the coat?’

He says, ‘I found it just there – that bad bend, the dark corner at the bridge. It was lyin across the road.’

So the old woman says, ‘Roll it up in a knot!’

And the old man rolled it up like that.

‘Now,’ she says, ‘throw it over the bridge!’ And the old woman opened the Bible and she said:

‘
God bless us all
!’ while the old man flung the coat over the bridge. When it hit the water it went in
a blaze o’ fire
and disappeared.

The old man looked: ‘God bless me,’ he said to the old woman, ‘it definitely was
the Devil’s coat
.’

So the old henwife said, ‘Aye John, that was
the Devil’s coat
. That was lost when he came here on Hallowe’en night. But it never was lost. It was left ‘specially for you: if you’d hae spent that sixpence, you’d hae been with the Devil!’

‘Well,’ he said to the old woman, ‘thank God you saved me.’

And the old man put his arm round his old wife and the two o’ them walked home. The old man said to her, ‘Look, as long as I live, Maggie, never again will I cross that brig at night-time.’

And from that day on the old man never crossed that bridge again till whatever day he died. He was the nicest old man to his old wife in the world. And life went on as if nothing ever had happened.

And that’s the last o’ my wee story.

In the West Coast of Scotland is Loch Awe. And in that loch is a castle, ruins now – just ruins – the walls are there but nothing else. The castle is called ‘Woe be tae ye’, what I was told, and no one as far as I know has ever known where it really began. But during the rainy season in Argyll the castle is surrounded by water, but when it comes a dry summer the loch dries up and ye can walk to the castle across the beach – which is only a fresh-water loch – it sits on about half an acre of land. And there’s such beautiful grass round the island.

So, a long time ago there lived an old widow and her son, they had a little croft on the mainland on Loch Aweside. She’d only one son, her husband had died many years ago and left her the one son. But she had some goats and some sheep and some cattle, and they had a wonderful life together. But her son was just about ten years old, and he had so many goats they had no food for them.

So one day she said, ‘Son, take the goats out to find some food for them.’

‘Mummy,’ he says, ‘why don’t I take them down to the island?’

She said, ‘Son, you can’t get tae the island today; the water is not low enough tae get across to the island.’

He says, ‘Mummy, I think after a dry spell, I think we could get across.’

So the young boy takes about five or six goats and they all follow him because they knew him as a baby. And the water then was only about two inches deep because it had been a dry summer. He walks across onto the little island in the middle of Loch Awe. The castle is surrounded by all these beautiful grasses and daisies and things, he thought it would be a wonderful place to take his goats and give them a good feed. And his mother had decided that he could go.

So wonst he led the goats across they spread out and they were eating, eating as fast as possible this beautiful green grass, because on their little croft they had eaten all the grass down. So the young boy walks round the castle, he’s looking up at the walls and he’s wondering in his own mind what kind of people had lived in this a long time ago, long before his time? And he walks round the walls, there were stairs going up, the stairs were half broken, there was no roof on the castle and some stairs had fallen in, there were big boulders and rocks. And then there was a small chamber that led into another room.

While his goats were busy feeding he would walk around, and he walked in through this passage to a chamber of the castle – even though the roof was gone there was a big broad square – which might in the olden days have been a dining room for the castle. And lo and behold he walked in . . .

There lying on the floor was a suit of armour!

And the boy wondered, he says, ‘I’ve never been here before, but – a suit of armour lying on the floor of the castle? I must tell my mummy about this when I go back.’ It was only a common suit of armour as far as he was concerned.

He was a knight, and round his waist was a belt and in the belt was a sword.

The boy walked all around the place . . . so far as he was concerned, it was just a suit of armour. And he looked, he saw the sword and he thought tae himself . . . his mother had told him many wonderful stories about knights that he heard all the time . . . an’ he thought, how in the world could anybody handle a sword like that?

So he walked over, naturally, and he pulled the sword a wee bit out of the sheath by the knight’s side, and he pulled it about five inches – then the head of the knight came up! And the boy stopped, he stood there, boy never gave it a thought. He pulled the sword up another bit, to see how long the sword was – and lo and behold the knight sat up like
this
– his legs are stretched out and he sat up, he held straight up!

And he spoke to the boy, he said, ‘Pull it out!’

The boy stood back.

The sword was half-drawn from the sheath at his side, he says, ‘Pull it out, boy; pull it out, boy!’

And the boy stood there, he was amazed!

He said, ‘Pull the sword, boy! Pull it out!’

Boy said . . . he was terrified – he wouldn’t pull it out.

‘Pull it out,’ the knight said, ‘an’ I’ll make ye the riches’ man in the worl!’

The boy wis terrified, ye see – cuidna pull it or go back doon!

‘A’ll give ye everything you require,’ said the knight, an’ he wis sittin on his end. ‘I’ll give ye everything ye want!’

And the boy was so afraid that the knight was going to do him harm, he took the sword and he pushed it back, pushed it back into the sheath, like
that
.

And like that the knight fell back – like
that
.

And the boy looked around . . . there was nothing. Gone was the knight and gone was everything. And the boy was
so terrified, he collected his goats and hurried back to his mother on Loch Aweside!

He told his mother the same story as I’m telling you. And his mother turned round. She said, ‘Look—’

‘Mother,’ he said, ‘what would hev happened if I’d hae pulled the sword out?’

She says, ‘Son, I’m glad you put the sword back, because it’s a long, long legend I will want to tell you. Because a long time ago, as far as my great-grandfather an’ my grandfather tellt me, there lived a knight in that castle across there, and he stole away a young woman tae be his bride, he took her to that castle. An’ he hung his sword on the wall, an’ her brothers came to take her back. They surrounded him an’ killed him – they never gave him a chance to get his hand on his sword. They killed him because he couldna reach his sword. But if he’d hae reached his sword he could have defended hissel. Son,’ she said, ‘if you’d hae pulled that sword out, you’d prob’ly done something an’ let his soul go in peace. But son, please for my sake, never go back to that castle again!’