THE KITCHIE DEEM WHO DREAMED

Her name was Isabelle, and she was the lily of the valley and the primrose of the dell - at least when she whispered to her pillow to tell the name of her truest love that's what her pillow called her in answer, though it would not say a lad's name back, only that she was a sweet young lass of fourteen and soon enough would have won the hearts of more lads than could be strung on the farmer's gold watch chain.

She rose at five every morn to scrub the floor, and clean and polish the grate and set the fire and light it and tend it till it blazed then settled, then she would fill and set the great waterkettle that must always be kept on the heat and filled whenever hot water was used from it, then she would set the porridge to cooking, and not soon enough the waterkettle would be boiling and it was time for a strupach of tea and the chance to sit for a minute. Then she would hear the tread of the farmer's wife coming down the wooden stair, and Isabelle would spring up and be seen to be busy so there would be no occasion for rough words, and the bread must be cut and the butter shaped and dished and the mugs and the plates and the spoons and the knives be set out ready, for the tramping of the farmer and the men coming in for their breaking of fast would too soon be heard.

It was a weary life, with no girl near her own age but the farmer's daughter, and that one kept so sheltered from the bothy lads and trained to manners that she had no thought to reach out to Isabelle for company, and Isabelle so humble in feeling that she had no thought the farmer's child would have any interest to talk with her. So the two were lonely in the house together.

The bothy lads had eyes for the farmer's daughter alone, and treated Isabelle as if she were a lad and a pal and at best a younger sister, so if she saved a special piece of tender scragend of lamb for a fairhaired loon with eyes cornflower blue he was far more like to thank her with a hefty friendly punch than with a cuddle.

Once a month she had a day off, and set off at streak of day to pace the long Scots miles that took her to her nearest kin, a journey down the strath, and across the ford to Little Scatwell and up the brae to a herd's stone cottage surrounded by rowans, where her mother's own sister welcomed her with a warm hug and a warm scone and a hot cup of buttered tea. There Isabelle told almost true stories of farm life up the strath to her aunt and a clutch of young cousins, and felt that she was known and cared for, until the hour threatened to grow late and soon it would be between the lights of day and night, and she must hurry to the road, a warm bundle of scones and cake at her back. If she were lucky she could use some of the store of baked goods to reward a carter for giving her a lift along the way back to the mains where she worked, and feel safe enough in his company, for anyone who drives a horse upon that road is known to all who live in the strath.

That road starts at the foot of Loch Achonachie and ends in the deep cleft at Corriefeol under Creag na h-Iolaire, and I for one would never live in a house that was called the hollow of flesh, and sat below the crag of the eagle. But anyway I would never live in a house was away from the smell and sound and sight of the salt sea. The road of the whale and the path of the saithe is the road I'd always live beside, so there's an end of it.

And Isabelle comes from about here, that's how I know her. Her home's in a wee cothouse up the hill to Braelangwell - now there's a name that could make more sense, does it mean the hillside of the long well, or the long hill that's seldom been ill, or what? Names! Isabelle's full name was Isabella Martha MacKay Kennedy, and she was as proud of her name as she should be.

At the end of her six month term Isabelle came home to Braelangwell to her mother and father and her brothers and sisters. As you would expect she gave half of the six months earnings that the farmer had paid to her in a fine white linen envelope to her mother for past and future keep. She'd had plenty time for thought over the long winter months, to plot and plan on what she would do with the rest of the money. Save it, or give it to the foreign missions, or spend it on clothes and ribbons and fine coloured pictures and clear sugar sweets? Better, she thought, to try to improve her chances in life. She would invest her money in goods, sell at a profit, then buy more goods to sell.

Next morning very early indeed she got up, came a-knocking at the door here at the ferryhouse to get taken over the firth, and she took a lift from a cheeky young carrier along the coast road into Dingwall. She went in to see the wholesale room at the back of the just open shop of the fancy goods merchant, to see what he had that would catch the fancy and the pennies of lads or lasses that would be at the Dingwall feeing market to get a place. When they had agreed with a farmer for a six month fee they'd be given a pound earnest money to spend, and that pound would burn a hole through their pocket and fall out into the hands of whoever could tempt them soonest and best.

Isabelle looked at knives that would shut up tight and small but had a fine spike strong enough to dig a pebble out from under a horse's shoe. She looked at Turkey Red shawls bright enough to keep the whole congregation from nodding asleep throughout a four hour sermon. She looked at jars of cinnamon sticks and candibrod and alicreesh blackstrap liquorish, batchelor's buttons and luve-lozengers and auld-wives' sookers, enough to keep her brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews and cousins quiet a whole day.

Then she came to a tray of tiny glass animals. Deer with antlers delicate as flower of grass, pengooines with comical yellow eyes and feet, saucy dogs with heads cocked wisely, curled careful cats. She wanted them all, to arrange upon the little shelf above her bedhead at home. And if she wanted them so much, then every other young kitchie deem would want one or two.

She bought the whole tray, with all her six month's fee and a promise of as much again before the end of the week, covered it over with her shawl of Paisley Harnish, and carried it with care and trouble out of the store. Isabelle turned from the awakening high street by the town nock to go down the street of churches towards the Market Hill, the little mound that they say the Lochlanners of the North built to hold their parliaments upon, the little meeting mound that gave Dingwall its name.

Isabelle spread her paisley shawl upon the scuffed grass, and sat down, her tray of wares between her legs with her apron over them to keep them glinting free from dust, and pondered on what prices to ask. She must make a profit, but the higher profit she sought the fewer sales she'd make, and today was the best day she'd have for three months to sell. Even the Runaways Feeing Market in a week's time would bring in only a quarter the number of younkers that would pass this spot today. She must make enough to pay back the shopman her credit on time, or devil the chance of credit she would have again.

The least she should charge was half again what they had cost her, but how much more again? The nock struck the hour, and she thought how many hours she'd already been up, and the little sleep for excitement that she'd had the night before, and understood why her head felt heavy on her shoulders this bright and warm morning. She should have thought to bring a bottle of cold tea with her. If she moved now to go to a stall for tea she would lose the fine place she had taken.

She would try naming a price or two when the first enquiries came, and see what response she got. If animals were snapped up, she would increase the asking price. If there was sad headshaking she would cut her figure. Then she thought, better in any case to begin be asking low and getting a few sales, to give herself comfort and confidence in the choice of goods she had made. But wait, if she began low and increased then the friends of those who bought would complain that they'd not had the bargain they had heard of. If she sold high then came down their friends would tell early buyers who would come and complain of being overcharged. If she named a high price then came down the word would go round that she could be beaten right down on price, and she'd make no profit at all.

She must hit on a price, and stick to it with courage. She must take her chance, and the worst that could befall was no sales, and losing her feeing money on a reselling of her goods back to the wholesale merchant. She must not take so long over the selling that she missed her chance to get a decent place as a kitchie deem this feeing time. She did not want to go far up the deep strath again, where in the winter the sun never rose high enough over the high hills to shine in on the farmhouse for three months complete. She wanted to stay in Easter Ross, where on her day off she could get home to her own house and see her nearest kin and the kith who lived about them.

But what if she sold her animals quickly? So quickly that she made her profit and more within the first hour of market? In that case, she'd hurry back to the warehouseman and get more goods to sell. Perhaps she could find more of the animals among his stock, or maybe try another line? If her selling went well enough, she might make more in a day than in two or three weeks of slavie work in a farm kitchen. If so, there were other markets than Dingwall, most days of a week. It would be at least a more interesting sort of a life to be selling to people and watching the passing show of a market, and she could be staying at home all the time.

She could use a bit of the profit to get a little cart, so instead of sitting on the ground she could stand and look a buyer in the eye. She would have built up her credit, with more than one wholesaleman too, so she could invest in more and better stock, and take her little sisters with her to mind the cart and run to fetch her a bottle of tea, or when she'd get thirsty she might even drink a bottle of fizzy ginger pop as if she were a farmer's daughter.

Better than that, she could build her business up till she'd enough in hand to take the sublease of a booth in a one room shop off one of the Dingwall alleys, and travel as far as Inverness to buy her stock, and send a packman or two round the farmtouns selling her wares, and take tea in a cup with a saucer in the receiving room of her own little house as she chatted with other businesswomen of the town.

And one day, as she sat at the cash drawer of her emporium in the High Street, in would come the farmer's wife of the farm up the strath of the Conon, her that had been so snippy and severe on a young friendless kitchie deem. Isabelle would not let on, and see if the farmer's wife should recognise her after all these years, and should wish to shake her hand and claim acquaintance, and invite her to go to the Grand Hotel to have cakes and afternoon tea with a slice of lemon and talk over old times together. Or if the farmwife would not recognise Isabelle, she would not let on at first, and play a game of words and lead her on with tales of her farm and how fine it was, until just at the right moment she would remind the farmwife of the night her husband had broken the leg of the orra man and the scandal had blackened the farm's name halfway down the strath, and might yet be fine amusing gossip among the businesswomen of Dingwall. And the farmwife would take her hand and beseech her to say nothing here of those old days, and would take both her hands to implore her silence, and Isabelle would struggle to free her hands and at last fling the farmwife's grip off and order her to the door.

Isabelle flung wide her hands that had entangled themselves in her apron as she slept, over and away with a smash went the tray of delicate glass animals, breaking and cracking every last one of them, and those people still there on the Market Hill though it was now midafternoon looked up at the sudden crash, and at the weeping of a lass that they supposed was heartbroken at having not won any feeing place that day.