© 2013 by tore56789 (GOS) All rights reserved.
A wager with Death
Hazy bright and so beautiful was the light –so inviting –so asking of me to walk right in. But yet, reluctantly, I refused, as I had earthbound reasons, as you will soon learn.
And for what followed, I have to say, Death was a fine fellow indeed. Sure, didn’t he let me finish my smoke, and chat a spell. And what highlander of the Mc Cullen’s clan, wouldn’t respect that?
“How old are you now?”
“Some weeks passed seventy seven.”
“Sure that’s a proud number for any man?”
“Ai, it is, to be sure.”
“Tell you what. As the night is a cold one. And you have a lovely going fire there that would warm the cockles of any beggar’s heart. I’ll let you finish your pipe, before I take you away.” Death said with a laugh, going to the fire in its black cloak. And as Pàdraig looked on from the rocking chair, placed also close to the fire, pulling on his pipe, he saw Death sit down in the chair opposite; only some feet away, pushing his bony, long grey fingers towards the flames.
“Sure, only for the fact you be a taking me on this cold night, I’d be thinking you were a fine fellow,” Pàdraig said again, puffing on his pipe contently. “So, can you tell me, what was it that did me in finally? Sure, if I didn’t be boosting, I’d say myself I felt in the best of health.” He ended with a chuckle, sucking on the shaft.
Death turned its head again, and he saw this time a teacher he knew when he was a boy, examining him back from the rim of the hood of the black cloak. And he realized there was truth in that saying after all. That Death is seen differently depending on the soul of the person who is looking at it. At least he was grateful he wasn’t gazing across at some ghastly looking spectre. But then neither was the other face horrific? “Sure, it was the poitin Pàdraig. It burst a vessel in your brain. You were a lucky man to have lasted as long as you did, with the way you downed that stuff. ”
“Ai, and looking at you, you look like a man who could do with a dram of it yourself, to get the heat into those bones.”
“Ai, I miss the stuff terribly, I do. Have not had it now for millenniums? As a man, I could out drink any man, be it the High Lands or the Low Lands of Scotland. Ai, sure weren’t my clan known well as to how good we could hold back our drink?”
“Sure, I suppose it was the same thing that done you in then; the hard stuff?”
“Ai, that it was.”
“So, would you care to make a wager?” He added after a moment, as the wood glowing bright red in the fireplace, crackled a bit, as a sudden gust of wet wind came down the chimney.
And with a harsh breeze rasping about angrily outside, and tugging at the front door, Death answered, “What wager had you in mind Pàdraig?”
“Sure, an old man like I am, against a strapping lad like yourself. Sure, I’d be betting, you’ll have me on the floor in no time,” he chuckled. “So I’m wagering I can out drink you. And if you are the fine man I’m placing you to be, you’ll oblige me in this.”
“Sure have a hungry thirst. And sure can’t I write it down to fulfilling a man’s last wishes.” So with a laugh from Death’s direction, “Sure go on then. Pour me a dram. Sure what man couldn’t have a dram on a night like tonight?” Death gave another laugh. “Sure may He and Hell freeze over, if he’d deny a spirit that?”
And as Death threw it back in seconds and stuck his cup out again longingly for the home brewed highland moonshine, Pàdraig asked as he poured him another. “So, I’ll be thinking then you aren’t going to be sending me down to the fellow below?”
He watched Death toss the second back just as quick, as if what was agreed upon had been lost with the want for the drink. “No, they want you up there? One thing no one could say against you. You aren’t a fine decent fellow.”
“They? Who?”
“You got good clan people up there Pàdraig?”
And when Death said it, the old man looked down at the old wolfhound stretched out at his feet. Where he saw its head just back a bit down from where Death’s cloak lay on the floor. The old hound it looked like was totally unaware of the caller –who had arrived at that late hour at its master’s cottage, as it moved slightly in dreams.
And holding off tears, he drank back one as Death watched on, and refilled a fresh cup for each. “So, does my Mary think of me still?”
“Ai, she does. She’s waiting for you now; along with your son Michael.”
“He was only twelve, when you came to take him from us.”
“He had a fierce fever Pàdraig. Nothing could have quenched that fire,” Death replied kindly, as the teacher he knew and respected as boy.
Again Death’s arm reached out longingly for the spirit. As if the drink was the utopia of happiness: For that uninvited caller, who had swiped away many a reluctant soul, without the least pity.
“My Mary was never the same after our boy Michael passed away. She never wanted another bairn. She had the fear of God in her that you might be about watching, waiting, to take him from her as well. So she did, Ai. But instead you came and took her.” He said those words, with his grey old eyes becoming watery.
“Sure, a heart as weak as your Mary’s, was doomed from the word go Pàdraig. She was never meant to be long for this world.”
Pulling on his pipe, he saw the drink now more evident on the face of the spectre opposite. And happily refilling his mug, to his glass, he looked down at the wolfhound. And the thought registered. For sure he knew how to take care of the Scottish Reapers. But how in the hell was he going to deal with the English ones –if they come up there from the South looking for him? In that week alone he had out foxed two such individuals. From the first; who now snored drunk in his bed next door, he had learnt four more would be calling. He even knew when, as Reapers could sense when other Reapers were about –doing their appointed job. Now, with this one about to meet the same fate –and he knew for certain, he would be keeping him well inebriated afterwards, he realized three more in the vastness of Scotland remained. He was thankful for his still out in the back. As it was the one cure to keep Death from taking him!
And as Death began to snore opposite, he said down to his dog, after taking a drag on his pipe, “Old fellow, one think a Scot can’t resist, is his drink.” The hound gave a stretch, and a little whinge, to its master’s words, as its paws pressed this time well into the bottom section of Death’s cloak. Who really didn’t mind, as he was out of it, like a quenched candle?
And with that, the old man puffed some more on his pipe. He knew Mary and Michael could wait. At least till Rufus, his dog, passed on. The way he saw it, he at least owed him that, as he had been a good loyal friend to him all her life. He chuckled with the reflection; if even they came to his door from the whole of the United Kingdom. He would, as God was his Judge, keep that one promise. On the old brown woodened panelled smoke stained wall, to the back of the old man, a calendar showed the year to be 1962; and the month to be February. Sure, wasn’t it after all, the coldest time of the year, and what Scot, past or present, wouldn’t take a dram from a man, if offered, on a night like that.
THE END
