The Hermit
We were on a touring bus one morning and it stopped at a shed by the side of the road. A hermit lived there. The shed was made of tin and had a long chimney sticking out of it. The bus driver, very upright behind the wheel, tooted the horn a few times and then stopped. We were looking out the window at the hut. After the driver had stopped tooting a man came out. He was very thin, and white, bristly hair was seen not only on his head but on his cheeks as well. His trousers were held up by braces. He was carrying a chanter. He scratched his head and then came over to the bus. He stood on the step and said, ‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid I was late getting up.’ He spoke in a sort of educated voice.
He looked down at the ground and then up again and, laughing a little, said, ‘Would you like if I played you some tunes to speed you on your way?’
He took out his chanter and blew through it. Then he took out a dirty white handkerchief and wiped it. He played ‘Loch Lomond’ very badly, and put the chanter on a case beside him, a case belonging to one of the passengers.
‘This is the day I go for my pension,’ he said, and someone laughed.
‘I go down the road there to the Post Office.’ He pointed into the slight mist ahead of us.
The driver said, ‘He’s been on TV, haven’t you?’
The hermit scratched his head again, looking down at the floor, and then, looking up again with an alert bright look on his unshaven ravaged face,
‘Yes, I was on TV,’ he said.
‘What programme were you on?’ someone shouted from the back, greatly daring. It was a woman’s voice.
‘It was called “Interesting People”. I was interviewed, I played the chanter.’
‘Will you be on again?’ someone asked.
‘I don’t know. I may be. Depends if they like me.’
Everyone laughed, and he grinned impudently.
‘I was late getting up,’ he said to the driver.‘ I was washing my clothes last night.’
‘You should get married,’ another woman shouted out.
‘It’s too late now,’ he said perkily. ‘Would you like to hear another tune? I must play for my money.’
This time he played ‘Scotland the Brave’. He put the chanter down and said – ‘It’s too early to play.’ He had played it very badly. In fact, his playing was so bad it was embarrassing.
He handed his cap round. When it came to my turn I debated whether to put threepence or sixpence in. After all, even though he was a hermit, he did play very badly.
As the cap was being handed round he stood on the steps and said – ‘No, I don’t have a gun. Anyway, there’s nothing here to kill, madam. I get my cheese and bread from down the road, and that’s all I need.’
When the cap was handed back to him he took out his chanter again and said – ‘I hope it’ll behave better this time. I’ll play you one for the road if my chanter behaves.’ He played ‘I’m no’ awa’ tae bide awa’. ‘I’m afraid my chanter is playing up on me today,’ he said, laughing. He got down from the step on to the road. The driver let in the clutch just as the hermit was saying, ‘I hope you have a pleasant day.’ The bus picked up speed. I saw him turning away and going into his hut. He didn’t wave or even look back, though some people in the bus were waving.
I didn’t know whether I hoped he got on TV or not. Playing like that he didn’t deserve to.
I heard a woman behind me saying: ‘Such an educated voice.’
And another one: ‘Perhaps he’s got a tragedy in his life. He sounded an intelligent sort of man.’
If I’d had the courage I would have spat on them. Who was he, anyway, making money from us just because he was a hermit? Anyone could be a hermit. It didn’t take courage to be a hermit. It only took despair. Anyway, he was one of the worst instrumentalists I had ever heard. I’d have given the money to Bob Dylan if he’d stood there singing ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’, but not to that faker.
The Exiles
She had left the Highlands many years before and was now living in a council flat (in a butterscotch-coloured block) in the Lowlands. Originally, when she had first moved, she had come to a tenement in the noisy warm centre of the town, not much better than a slum in fact, but the tenement had been pulled down in a general drive to modernise the whole area. The council scheme was itself supposed to be very modern with its nice bright colour, its little handkerchiefs of lawns, its wide windows. The block swarmed with children of all shapes and sizes, all ages and colours of clothes. There were prams in practically all the hallways, and men in dungarees streamed home at five. Then they would all watch TV (she could see the blue light behind the curtains like the sky of a strange planet), drink beer, or shake the flimsy walls with music from their radiograms. On Saturdays they would go to the football matches – the team was a Second Division one – or they would mow the
