Peanmeanach, Ardnish

We were a painter and a writer, in need of a few days away from routine, a break from the familiar banter of the pub table. We were bards of the foolish daunder, with an urge to harvest a new boast, another exploit to feed to our company of friends over the winter months. We were part-time, semi-competent, amateur adventurers.

We packed and drove to Fort William, leaving later than planned and dawdling in the supermarket to gather provisions. Somewhere on the road to Mallaig, in a gritty lay-by, we tethered the car; loyal, forlorn and patient for our return. It was already four o’clock. In November.

Three miles, four at the most, to the bay where the bothy would be found. It seemed straightforward. We pulled on our boots, wrapped on our gaiters, shouldered our packs and climbed the fence. Within a hundred paces we were lost and had to retrace to within view of the car. We went again, across a small footbridge to where a wide but shallow looking puddle formed a dark mirror to the wisping silver birches. Confident of my boots, I strode forward. And down. Into the black ooze I sank. Three points down; two legs and an arm outstretched in failed rescue. I rolled out, newly clothed in wet black bog peat, senses elevated by the shock of my own fragility. I squelched on.

Next a steep rocky path up a burn descending against us, twisting, straining the knees, packs pulling at our backs. Stealthily, the darkness enfolded us as we navigated towards the glimmer of the ridge, drew ourselves along its milky horizon and, plunging back into the trees, discovered the blindness of the pit pony. We were not even half-way there, but we had no idea of that. For another hour, we stumbled, clambered, heaved and tottered, chasing the faint gold coin of light shed by a single shared headtorch. In the plains near the shore, where the ground was so sodden that it sucked at our soles, tall grasses, back-combed in stiff ranks, rose on either side of a thin path. We proceeded like lice along the arrow-straight parting between the reeds.

Despair and recrimination gathered within and between us. Dark, cold and over-reached, we dared not voice what we knew both were thinking. Whose idea was this, anyway?

At last, a dark geometric shape to the left of us. The bothy. Eager to get there and careless for our already drenched feet, we forded the burn to reach it. A small four-paned window was lit with a pale flame. Candle-light. We would not be alone.

Among migrants, those already arrived are the most resentful of the next wave of incomers. As we lifted the latch and swung open the door, we felt the nervous expectation of being unwelcome. The couple inside, who had been alone there together for a week, might easily have fallen silent and looked darkly at us. But that is not the bothy code. Always room for one more. They moved over to give us access to the fire, greeted us politely and made space for us to brew up a hot drink.

My companion, a man of few words and none of them wasted on civility, withdrew for a smoke outside. Had he waited, he would have been offered a better smoke by the fire. On his return, our hosts (for that is the aspect they struck) unboxed two fiddles and set themselves to play. A short but magical recital welcomed us into their company and into their conversation, which quickly turned to where to find firewood, fresh water and plump mussels on the shore. Whisky and rum were produced from our packs and circulated among the four of us. Eventually, the couple withdrew to the only other room in the place, carrying a candle and a shovel full of embers for their fireplace.

Sitting alone together, we eased ourselves out of wet trousers and the damp spirits we had carried along the last mile of our walk-in. The drink loosened our tongues and soon we were congratulating one another on the fine idea to seek this place out.

Our chatter was paused by a new sound, footsteps and a scraping on the wall outside. Newcomers, even later arrivals than ourselves. The fools! Who, apart from us, would be so stupid as to attempt such a journey in darkness? The stumbling sounds continued and we waited for the door to creak open and the people to spill in. But none came. I went to the window, but it only reflected in its cobweb-frosted panes the light of the candle within. I went to the door and looked out, headtorch lit. A hundred silvered eyes shone back, motionless and fascinated. Deer, dozens of deer, stacked deeply across the grass of the foreshore. I switched off the torch. The shapes of the deer remained. They stomped and puffed but they did not flee. This was their grazing; we were inconsequential. Above them stars, thousands already gazing down and, wherever I looked, hundreds more behind jostling for a peek. Then the murmur of the sea, revealed by my stillness and that of the place. I stood for a while until the cold bit into my thighs and urged me back inside.

In the morning, the stars had faded away, the deer were gone, and our fiddlers had departed. We had the place to ourselves. We roamed the beach, gathered damp branches from dead trees to restock the firewood. We pulled out our notebooks: one sketched, another scribbled. We sank into a reverie, bathing in the landscape and we let the textured sky run over us.

We stayed for two timeless days: hours merged; past and present seeped into one another. Our walk out in daylight revealed to us the obvious perils of our journey in.

To the Inn we returned with our rough pebble of a story, ready now to be burnished by telling and re-telling.