While some people sit at home wondering what happened to their New Year Resolutions, and others are wearying on spring, a hardy bunch of Gallowa' locals are out in the hills.  And this month they've been out on Curlywee, experiencing the weather and taking some pictures for us.   So, because every day's a school day... here's Crockett's story 'The Tutor o' Curlywee' from The Stickit Minister and some common men. 

                                                                                             THE TUTOR OF CURLYWEE
 
The Minister of Education started to walk across the great moors of the Kells Range so early in the morning that for the first time for twenty years he saw the sun rise. Strong, stalwart, unkempt, John Bradfield, Right Honourable and Minister of the Queen, strode over the Galloway heather in his rough homespun. 'Ursa Major' they called him in the House. His colleagues, festive like schoolboys before the Old Man with the portfolios came in, subscribed to purchase him a brush and comb for his hair, for the jest of the Cabinet Minister is even as the jest of the schoolboy. John Bradfield was sturdy in whatever way you might take him. Only last session he engineered a great measure of popular education through the House of Commons in the face of the antagonism, bitter and unscrupulous, of Her Majesty's Opposition, and the Gallio lukewarmness of his own party. So now there was a ripple of great contentment in the way he shook back locks which at forty-five were as raven black as they had been at twenty-five; and the wind that blew gently over the great billowy expanse of rock and heather smoothed out some of the crafty crows' feet deepening about his eyes.
When he started on a thirty-mile walk over the moors, along the dark purple precipitous slopes above Loch Trool, the glory of summer was melting into the more Scottish splendours of a fast-coming autumn, for the frost had held off long, and then in one night had bitten snell and keen. The birches wept sunshine, and the rowan trees burned red fire.
 
The Minister of Education loved the great spaces of the Southern uplands, at once wider and eerier than those of the Highlands. There they lie waiting for their laureate. No one has sung of them nor written in authentic rhyme the strange weird names which the mountain tops bandy about among each other, appellations hardly pronounceable to the southron. John Bradfield, however, had enough experience of the dialect of the 'Tykes' of Yorkshire to master the intricacies of the nomenclature of the Galloway uplands. He even understood and could pronounce the famous quatrain: 'The Slock, Milquharker, and Craignine, The Breeshie and Craignaw; Are the five best hills for corklit, That e'er the Star wife saw.'

The Minister of Education hummed this rhyme, which he had learned the night before from his host in the tall tower which stands by the gate of the Ferrytown of Cree. As he made his way with long swingin’ gait over the heather, travelling by compass and the shrewd head which the Creator had given him, he was aware  in old times the rocks and cliffs of the Dungeon of Buchan were kind of moss known a, 'corklit,' used for dyeing, the gathering formed part of the livelihood of the peasantry. About midday he came upon a shepherd's hut which lay in his track. He went briskly up to the door, passing the little pocket-handkerchief of kailyaird which the shepherd had carved out of the ambient heather. The purple bells grew right up to the wall of grey stone dyke which had been built to keep out the deer, or mayhap occasionally to keep them in, when the land was locked with snow, and venison was toothsome.
'Good day to you, mistress,' said the Minister of Education, who prided himself on speaking to every woman in her own tongue.
'And good day to you, sir,' heartily returned the sonsy, rosy-cheeked goodwife, who came to the door, ‘an' blithe I am to see ye. It's no that aften that I see a body at the Back Hoose o' Curlywee.'

John Bradfield soon found himself well entertained— farles of cake, crisp and toothsome, milk from the cow, with golden butter in a lordly dish, cheese from a little round kebbuck, which the mistress of the Back House of Curlywee kept covered up with a napkin to keep it moist.
The goodwife looked her guest all over.
'Ye'll not be an Ayrshireman nae, I'm thinkin'. Ye kind o' favour them in the features, but ye hae the tongue o' the English.'
'My name is John Bradfield, and I come from Yorkshire,' was the reply.
'An' my name's Mistress Glencairn, an' my man Tammas is herd on Curlywee. But he's awa' ower by the Wolf's Slock the day lookin' for some forwandered yowes.'

The Minister of Education, satisfied with the good cheer, bethought himself of the curly heads that he had seen about the door. There was a merry face, brown with the sun, brimful of mischief, looking round the corner of the lintel at that moment. Suddenly the head fell forward and the body tumultuously followed, evidently by some sudden push from behind. The small youth recovered himself and vanished through the door, before his mother had time to do more than say, 'My certes, gin I catch you loons,' as she made a dart with the handle of the besom at the culprit.

For a little John Bradfield was left alone. There were sounds of a brisk castigation outside, as though some one were taking vigorous exercise on tightly stretched corduroy. 'And on the mere the wailing died away!’
'They're good lads eneuch,' said the mistress, entering a little breathless, and with the flush of honest endeavour in her eye, 'but when their faither's oot on the hill they get a wee wild. But as ye see, I try to bring them up in the way that they should go,' she added, setting the broomstick in the corner.
'What a pity,' said the Minister of Education, 'that such bright little fellows should grow up in this lonely spot without an education.'
He was thinking aloud more than speaking to his hostess. The herd's wife of Curlywee looked him over with a kind of pity mingled with contempt.
'Edicated! did ye say? My certes, but my bairns are as weel edicated as onybody's bairns. Juist e'en try them, gin it be your wull, sir, an' aiblins ye'll fin' them no' that far ahint yer ain!’
Going to the door she raised her voice to the telephonic pitch of the Swiss jodel and the Australian 'coo — ee, Jee-mie, Aa-leck, Aa-nie, come ye a' here this meenit!’

The long Galloway vowels lingered on the still air, even after Mistress Glencairn came her ways back again into the house. There was a minute of a great silence outside. Then a scuffle of naked feet, the sough of subdued whispering, a chuckle of interior laughter, and a prolonged scuffling just outside the window.
'Gin ye dinna come ben the hoose an' be douce, you Jeemie, an' Rob, an' Alick, I'll come till ye wi' a stick! Mind ye, your faither 'ill no be lang frae hame the day.'
A file of youngsters entered, hanging their heads, and treading on each other's bare toes to escape being seated next to the formidable visitor.
'Wull it please ye, sir, to try the bairns' learning for yoursel'?’
A Bible was produced, and the three boys and their sister read round in a clear and definite manner, lengthening the vowels it is true, but giving them their proper sound, and clanging their consonants like hammers ringing on anvils.
'Very good!’ said John Bradfield, who knew good reading when he heard it.

From reading they went on to spelling, and the great Bible names were tried in vain. The Minister of Education was glad that he was examiner, and not a member of the class. Hebrew polysyllables and Greek-proper names fell thick and fast to the accurate aim of the boys, to whom this was child's play. History followed, geography, even grammar, maps were exhibited, and the rising astonishment of the Minister of Education kept pace with the quiet complacent pride of the Herd's Wife of Curlywee. The examination found its appropriate climax in the recitation of the 'Shorter Catechism.' Here John Bradfield was out of his depth, a fact instantly detected by the row of sharp examinees. He stumbled over the reading of the questions. He followed the breathless enunciation of that expert in the 'Caritches,' Jamie, with a gasp of astonishment. Jamie was able to say the whole of Effectual Calling in six ticks of the clock, the result sounding to the uninitiated like the prolonged birr of intricate clockwork rapidly running down.
'What is the chief end of man?’ slowly queried the Minister of Education, with his eye on the book.
'Mans-chiefend-glorfyGod-joyim-frever!’ returned Jamie nonchalantly, all in one word, as though some one had asked him what was his name.
The Minister of Education threw down his Catechism.
'That is enough. They have all done well, and better than well. Allow me,' he said, doubtfully turning to his hostess, 'to give them each a trifle.'
'Na, na,' said Mistress Glencairn, 'let them e'en do their work withoot needin' carrots hadden afore their nose like a cuddy. What wad they do wi' siller?’
'Well, you will at least permit me to send them each a book by post—I suppose that you get letters up here occasionally?’
‘'Deed, there's no that muckle correspondence amang us, but when we're ower at the kirk there, yin o' the herds on Lamachan that gangs doon by to see a lass that leeves juist three miles frae the post-office, an' she whiles fetches ocht that there may be for us, an' he gi'es it us at the kirk.'
John Bradfield remembered his letters and telegrams even now entering in a steady stream into his London office and overflowing his ministerial tables, waiting his return—a solemnising thought. He resolved to build a house on the Back Hill of Curlywee, and have his letters brought by way of the kirk and the Lamachan herd's lass that lived three miles from the post-office.
'Oot wi' ye!’ said the mistress briefly, addressing her offspring, and the school scaled with a tumultuous rush, which left a sense of vacancy and silence and empty space about the kitchen.
'And now will you tell me how your children are so well taught?’ said John Bradfield. 'How far are you from a school?’
'Weel, we're sixteen mile frae Newton Stewart, where there's a schule but no road, an' eleven frae the Clatterin' Shaws, where there's a road but no schule.'
'How do you manage then?’ The Minister was anxious to have the mystery solved.
'WE KEEP A TUTOR!’ said the herd's wife of Curlywee, as calmly as though she had been a duchess.
The clock ticked in its shiny mahogany case, like a hammer on an anvil, so still it was. The cat yawned and erected its back. John Bradfield's astonishment kept him silent.
'Keep a tutor,' he muttered; 'this beats all I have ever heard about the anxiety of the Scotch peasantry to have their children educated. We have nothing like this even in Yorkshire.'
Then to his hostess he turned and put another question.
'And, if I am not too bold, how much might your husband get in the year?’
'Tammas Glencairn is a guid man, though he's my man, an' he gets a good wage. He's weel worthy o't. He gets three an' twenty pound in the year, half score o' yowes, a coo's grass, a bow o' meal, a bow o' pitatas, an' as mony peats as he likes to cast, an' win', an' cairt.'
'But how,' said John Bradfield, forgetting his manners in his astonishment, 'in the name of fortune does he manage to get a tutor?’
'He disna keep him. I keep him!’ said Mistress Glencairn with great dignity.
The Minister of Education looked his genuine astonishment this time. Had he come upon an heiress in her own right?
His hostess was mollified by his humbled look.
'Ye see, sir, it's this way,' she said, seating herself opposite to him on a clean-scoured, white wooden chair: ‘there's mair hooses in this neighbourhood than ye wad think. There's the farm hoose o' the Black Craig o' Dee, there's the herd's hoose o' Garrary, the onstead o' Neldricken, the Dungeon o' Buchan—an' a wheen mair that, gin I telled ye the names o', ye wadna be a bit the wiser. Weel, in the simmer time, whan the colleges gang doon, we get yin o' the college lads to come to this quarter. There's some o' them fell fond to come. An' they pit up for three or fower weeks here, an' for three or fower weeks at the Garrary ower by, an' the bairns travels ower to whaur the student lad is bidin', an' gets their learnin'. Then when it's time for the laddie to be gaun his ways back to college, we send him awa' weel buskit wi' muirland claith, an' weel providit wi' butter an' eggs, oatmeal an' cheese, for the comfort o' the wame o' him. Forbye we gather up among oorsels an' bid him guid speed wi' a maitter o' maybe ten or twal' poun' in his pooch. And that's the way we keep a tutor!’
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Introducing you to some of our classic unco writers. 

 Here's a story for Halloween. 

'A Cry Across the Black Water' is a spooky story set in Galloway at the Black Water of Dee. 


Written by S.R.Crockett and first published in the Pall Mall Magazine in 1894 you can read it free online at McStorytellers.

It was subsequently published in the short story collection of 1895 Bog Myrtle and Peat available from Unco in paperback and digital formats 
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Find out more about S.R.Crockett at The Galloway Raiders
Find out more about  the history of The Pall Mall Magazine