Tales From The Dark Past - Books 4-5

Chapter 2-3

“He’s all right,” I said. n***d men did not interest me any more than n***d women did. I could see Jim without his clothes on, and that was all; I had no s****l feelings one way or another.

“Oh, he’s better than all right. Look at his doup; wouldn’t you like to grab hold of that?” Agnes went into even more intimate details as Jim continued to answer Dougie’s questions. From time to time, another horseman would fire a question, but Jim coped well.

“Now,” Dougie said when he tired of being the question master, “you seem to be adequately versed in the primary aspects of horsemanship. Tell me the penalties for breaking your oath.”

The circle of watchful, flat-bonneted, caustic men listened as Jim intoned a litany of terrible penalties. They nodded when Jim ending with, “and in failing may my body be quartered in four parts with a horseman’s knife and buried in the sea, or may I be torn to pieces by wild horses.”

The horsemen grunted approval as Dougie continued. “Are you ready to meet Auld Horsie, the king of the horsemen, and learn the Horseman’s Word?”

“I am,” Jim said although I heard the quiver in his voice.

I knew that the Horseman’s Word was supposed to be a secret password into the Society of Horsemen, the word that gave the men power over horses and women. Some said the Word was why there were so many pregnant women and illegitimate babies in rural Scotland. I did not know; I only knew that all the young lads dreamed of the day they entered the Society and gained the Word and the power.

“First you must endure the corridor of pain,” Dougie said, “to see if you are worthy of the honour!”

I had not heard of this tradition before and wondered if Dougie had added such a refinement of cruelty himself. When I looked at Agnes, she pulled a face and shrugged.

The horsemen formed a human corridor, with Dougie ordering them to remove their belts.

“Andy!” Dougie snapped. “Bring the candidate to the entrance of the corridor. Horsemen! Ensure the candidate remembers his ordeal! Test his endurance to see if he’s fit to be a horseman!”

I could not watch as Andrew led Jim to the entrance of the gauntlet, murmured in his ear and gave him a gentle push. Dougie had taken his stance and swung his doubled leather belt with gusto. The other horsemen copied, swinging their belts at Jim’s pale body. I only wondered at the cruelty that co-existed with genuine kindness among Scottish farmers, remembered similar instances in my life and hoped Dougie’s ordeal would not last long.

“Oh, that will sting!” Agnes whispered and then watched avidly with her right hand in her mouth. I did not know if she enjoyed the spectacle or was fascinated by Jim’s torment. I only knew I wished myself elsewhere.

After forcing Jim on three journeys through the gauntlet, Dougie tired of the game. “Lights off!” he ordered sharply, and the horsemen doused every lantern. I could not understand why Dougie should want the lanterns out, as Jim was blindfolded. When Agnes gasped at the sudden darkness, I reached for her hand, squeezed it, and she replied in kind.

Silence filled the Muckle Barn, except for the horsemen"s subdued breathing and a sound like feet dragging through the straw-covered floor. I waited, feeling the tension rise. Something was wrong. I could feel that something had entered the barn that was beyond Dougie’s s******c pleasure.

“Lights on!” Dougie said again.

I heard the scratching of matches and saw the small glow of flames, before the lantern-light spread out from a single central point.

“What in God’s name?” I muttered, and even the hard-bitten horsemen gasped in surprise.

The lights blazed around what I can only describe as a thing in near-human shape. About five foot five inches in height, it stood on the ground with an amazingly devilish face carved into it, with pointed ears, narrow red eyes, a sharp nose, and a mouth curved in a smile, except for the row of sharp teeth.

thingI looked away. Somewhere in my past, buried under a host of bitter memories, I had seen something like that before. The face may have been carved in wood, but the features were familiar if exaggerated. I found myself squeezing Agnes’s hand so hard that she gasped in pain.

“Now!” Dougie stood behind the wooden figure. He extended a long staff, covered in rough, hairy hide and with some animal’s paw at the end, complete with hooked claws. “James Walter Blair! If you think yourself fit to become a horseman, come and shake Auld Horsie’s paw!”

Naked as a baby, blindfolded and welted by a dozen belts, Jim stepped forward with his hand extended.

Dougie thrust the hairy paw forward until Jim grasped it, then closed the claws on Jim’s hand. Only then did he duck behind Jim and rip off the blindfold.

After more than an hour of darkness, subjected to rigorous questioning and a beating, Jim suddenly saw the hideous grinning face glaring at him as he held the rough, hooked paw. I was not surprised when he let out a yell of shock and dropped the paw, backing away from the carved figure.

The horsemen’s laughter was tinged with what I thought was relief, and they all chanted in unison:

“Here’s to them that work horses.

“Here’s to them that work horses.Bad luck to them that is cruel

Bad luck to them that is cruelLet perseverance be their guide,

Let perseverance be their guide,And nature be their rule.”

And nature be their rule.”Jim grinned around them, only then rubbing at his backside, which had been the horsemen"s belts" primary target. On his pale skin, the heavy leather had left broad red welts. Many of the men laughed again, not unkindly.

“Rub away, Jim, lad, we all know what it feels like.”

“Aye, we’ve all been there,” Andrew said. “You can get some lassie to kiss it better, but not my Agnes!”

I heard Agnes suck in her breath at Andrew’s remark.

“Is that it?” Jim asked. “When do I get the Horseman’s Word?”

“You get it now,” Andrew said and leaned closer. “The Word that gives you power over horses and women,” he said, and whispered something in Jim’s ear.

Some trick of the acoustics carried the words to me – “both in one”.

“Is that it?” Jim sounded disappointed. Perhaps he had expected a magic phrase in mediaeval Latin.

“That’s it.” Dougie produced a pencil and a scrap of paper. “Here, write it down in case you forget.”

Jim reached for the pencil, held it between finger and thumb and flicked it at Dougie. “Here, conceal, never reveal; neither write nor dite nor recite not cut nor carve nor write in sand,” he repeated his earlier words. “You’ll not catch me out, Douglas Mitchell!”

The watching horsemen roared with laughter, and one clapped Jim on the back. “Well done, Jim! You passed the final test.”

As the evening descended into a vast consumption of whisky, and the still n***d Jim drank with the rest, I looked at the hideously carved wooden object.

That thing worried me. I knew I had seen its likeness before, but I could not think where? I knew it did not belong in the Muckle Barn, nor in Kingsinch.

“Agnes,” I started, but Agnes’s gaze had not strayed from Jim’s n***d body. I knew there was no point in asking her anything.

“Where are you going?” Agnes asked.

“Back to bed,” I said.

“Don’t you want to watch the men?”

I shook my head. I wanted to get far away from that carved wooden object as quickly as possible. The evil within it disturbed me.