The People of the Sea by David Thomson

Author:David Thomson [David Thomson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781847674593
Publisher: Canongate Books
Published: 1954-03-15T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

Some of the priests of Ireland, in the early days, escaped from the world as they knew it by sailing in curraghs to the North, and many of the remote places where they found refuge are named after them. Papa Stour – ‘The Great Priest’ – is an island, about two miles long and one across, to the west of the mainland of Shetland. Its coast is cut deeply by the sea, violent on the Atlantic side even in summer, and swift like a river in spate on the lee-side, where the tides race through the Sound of Papa. I crossed the Sound of Papa in a drifter with six dealers who were going to buy sheep and cattle on the island.

The annual sale is held by the wall of the churchyard, on a green hill above a sandy bay. Six or seven bullocks and old cows were tethered there and about two hundred tiny Shetland sheep were mewed, unhappily bedraggled, in pens against the wall, their wool tight and sticky, their delicate pink nostrils quivering, their horns warm to touch in the rain, their eyes afraid, staring at the people who stood in groups waiting for the auctioneer to start. He started with an Angus bullock.

I was leaning against a sheep-pen absently watching this black creature as it strained against the woman who held it by a rope, its hoofs dug obstinately into the glistening grass, its tail lashing slowly, its eyes turned now to the sky, now to the half-circle of children, men and women who laughed and spoke, eager as at a festival, brightly dressed with scarves, broad checks or yellow oilskins, listening to the auctioneer only when the price grew high and pressing closer to him then, as he stood watching, chanting, watching for the almost imperceptible movement of a finger or an eyebrow used to indicate a bid. I heard him chant, ‘Twenty-seven I’m bid, twenty-seven I’m bid, twenty-seven and a half I’m bid, and a half and a half and a half I’m bid. Twenty-eight I’m bid …’ – but as soon as I was more attentive a voice beside me said, ‘We used to have good cattle.’

‘That one looks good,’ I said.

‘A fine lump of a bullock yon,’ he said, ‘but we had the best on the island one time, the wife and I.’

‘Not now?’ I said.

‘Not now.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Two old people. We canna manage now.’ He looked at me and smiled. I saw he was amused and half ashamed by what he had caught himself saying. I liked him. He was very tall and narrow and though he stooped a little, his face, so alert and hard and ready to laugh, made him seem young until one saw him walking.

‘Ye are no’ buying cattle the day?’ he said.

‘No, no. I just came on a visit.’

‘Ye’re from the South?’

‘Yes.’ I told him about my parents and about my childhood at Nairn. I told him some things I remembered of Derbyshire and London.

‘But ye were born in Scotland?’ he said.

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