Haggis
or
The Last Word
by Limey
 

"Aye.  Haggis mon, haggis.  Tha's the meal for a mon.  Put brawn into yer back, beef into your bones, brains into your belly."

"Brains into my ... belly?" the newcomer faltered.

Even those of us who knew McGreggor thought he made a remarkable recovery from that faux pas.  "Aye mon, y'belly.   Where else would ye expect to find brains?"

His little red beard shot up to the horizontal and pointed like a wee dagger at the victim's chin.   The stranger recoiled slightly, lifted each foot in turn from the floor, placed them formly back again:  "Why of course.  To be sure.  To be sure."

He looked at us appealingly but we just waited knowing that McGreggor was but getting into his stride.   "I suppose ye'll be telling me ye've never seen a Haggis?"

"Er ... no.  I'm afraid I haven't."

"Sassenach."   He spat out the word in a low-pitched explosive expletive as though its very presence if allowed to linger on his tongue would have poisoned his entire universe.   "If I gave ye one I suppose ye'd eat it and leave the brains?"

"Well, I don't know really."   He caught Mac's glinting eye and made haste
to amend that to:  " No.   I hate waste."

"Then," said McGreggor in the soft voice he might use to soothe a greeting bairn. "ye'd have brains in yer belly, wouldn't ye?"

Eyes closed, the stranger drew a deep breath, smote his forehead against
the palm of his hand:  "Look.  Surely a Haggis isn't an animal?"

"Aye.  Doon there on t'other side o' the border ye all think they grow on trees?"   The contempt on his voice withered the head on my beer.  "If ye had the strength in those English legs to carry ye to the top o' the Scottish hills ye'd not only see the Haggis.   Ye'd know there aren't any trees up there."

"Oh.   But come.   Surely, Haggis is a manufactured commodity?"

"Commodity is it?  Laddie," said McGreggor mildly, "ye ken the Haggis is a manufactured FOOD."   Then that soft voice swept back to fierce aggressiveness:  "It was manufactured by the guid God above us and put into the land o' men for the bedevilment of all sassenachs."

He lifted his glass and stared at the liquid as though it were some rare and beautiful sight.  The stranger, perhaps overburdened by the stultifying silence, opened his mouth to speak but Mac said thoughtfully:  "'Tis a pity the Devil got to 'em."

Eyebrows climbing toward his hairline the man took the bait.   Said he,
unwarily:  "Where the devil does He come into this?"

McGreggor sucked off the top half of his beer:   "It's on account of their wee legs" and he slapped the glass back on to the counter.

"The devil it is," returned his stooge with just the suggestion of a grin.

McGreggor's left eye fixed him suspiciously and that beard began to tremble.   "If ye'd ever seen one laddie, ye'd know the left legs of a Haggis are shorter than the right."

"Hmm," said the stranger and then again:" Humm."   He examined the bottom of his now empty glass and then:  "Ah."

McGreggor, unmindful of the interjection, pressed on:  "That's why ye'll no' find them but in the hills.   The slope evens them up a bit, d'ye see.   But ye'll no' catch one unless ye know how.   They're verra fast."

The man looked pensively at the ceiling. "Fleet, lopsided animal," said he, "living at the top o' the hills.  Shouldn't think anyone could catch 'em.  Except maybe the artillery?"

Mac glared.  "Ye'd no' catch one unless ye know how," he reiterated. The beard thrust forward once more to quell the rising tide of opposition. "Ye'd have to lie low."

"To catch fast-moving animal ... two short legs ... lives on slopes at top of high hills ... just lie low."  He nodded sagely, grasping his nose between finger and thumb to rub slowly along its length.  "Excellent!"

"If ye dinna want to know aboot the Haggis ... " began McGreggor but the visitor gestured his apology and McGreggor settled again to his narrative.

"It's always the left legs are short ye see and so the Haggis always travel left-handed around the hills.  Ye have t' lie low untl one appears in the right direction ... then y'rush it.  If ye can turn it ... it just has to
fall over."

Wide-eyed the stranger asked:  "Do you put salt on their tails?"

"Salt?"  McGreggor was fit to burst:  "Salt? On a Haggis?"  Abruptly he calmed down once more.   Pityingly: "Mon.  They havna got any tails."

The victim was suitably humbled and dropped his eyes to the floor. Majestically McGreggor raised his glass to quaff the last of his chaser.

"Tell me."   The man was looking at him admiringly:  "Isn't this all a bit dangerous?  I mean ... it's no joke tearing around at the top of hills, is it?"

"Aye, laddie.  Dangerous it is.  As ye say 'tis no joke on a hilltop. Some there are that hurt theirsel' .   And sometimes bad too."

"I'm not surprised." The man picked up his glass, examined its emptiness, put it down again.

"Like young Ian Ross now.  That was a fine young feller ... once."  McGreggor rested his beard on his hand, his chin on the beard.

"What happened?"

"Well y'see.   He used to be one for the Haggis-chasin'.   Did verra well at it too.   That was until he met his match."

McGreggor lifted his head to shake it, put it carefully back on his hand: "He turned a verra big Haggis, a real old 'un and wily with it.   Kept running quite a way 'fore it fell.   Ross was so eager to grab it he got
careless, slipped and they both rolled to the bottom of the hill.."

Pensively, McGreggor peered  into his empty glass.   The Landlord was working the other end of the Bar.

"Was he hurt badly?"

"Knocked right out.  Clean knocked out."  Mac was showing signs of strain, his concentration wavering.   "Took him two whole days to crawl home.  So hungry he had to eat the prize Haggis."

For some reason he reminded me of the sailor we had entertained a few weeks before with his tale of bad weather: "Spent three weeks on one wave!"   But the stranger was again looking at the ceiling.  Face puckered with effort he mutterred: "Now I wonder what Haggis tastes like ... RAW?"

Mac, though badly startled, was seemingly beyond coping with such distractions.  His throat was dry - his mind wandering.

"Landlord,"  I said: "A glass for McGreggor please."  Because McGreggor was struggling to cope with the intruder who insisted on poking spanners into his flow I did not resent his failure to acknowledge my gift.  He lifted it and downed it in that single smooth flowing action that denotes the pratised and dedicated imbiber.

Refreshed, with Time gained, Mac returned to the full charge:  "He was never the same mon again," he roared magnificently.  "Perhaps 'twas the fall, perhaps ... maybe the concussion.   O' course, it could maybe ... could ha' been the raw haggis ... ".

"You mean he's gone round the bend?"

"LADDIE!   Tha' an insult to the Haggis o' Sco'land.   'Tis insult t' Sco'land.  Aye ... it's insult to ScotsMEN."   He glowered along the pointing accusing beard.  Glasses rang with the impact of his fist upon the Bar.

Our stranger, with gesture as graceful as the old-fashioned deep bow, withdrew the unfortunate remark.

Mac's majesty simmered down to an equally gracious beard-shimmying victory tremble and he sailed on: "Ye'll have heard now of those wee waltzing mice?  No?  Ah well.   They have something that goes wrong inside their ears ... or so they say.  It makes them walk only round in circles?"

The stranger remained impassive and waited for the next salvo. McGreggor shook his head slowly then put it back once more upon his hand.   He drew a deep and sad breath before he continued:  "Ross, poor
feller, must ha' damaged his ears in that fall."

"You saying he now walks round in circles?"

"Och, no.  It's no' as bad as that.   'Though he does tend to wander a wee bit to his left, ye ken?"

The visitor considered this for a moment in silence but evidently decided to leave the field to Mac until, patience exhausted, Mac blurted irritably: "Think mon.   How can a man who walks the same was as Haggis, chase them the WRONG way round hills?"

He cradled his glass, now empty again, between two hands and swirled the imaginary contents before setting it lovingly back on the Bar.   In a voice soft and crooning he intoned:  "Poor feller.   Poor wee feller.  Just works now for Angus in his black-pudding shop."

Delicately the stranger held in front of himself a large unfolded newspaper while he read aloud the headline:  "Man in whirl mixes pud."

"Fool," thundered Mac.   "How can a mixed-up man mix pud mix?"   He subsided on to his stool to throw out: "He works out the back ... sorting soot."

Hand it to the stranger, he could have joined a cricket club in any part of the world.   He said:  "Landlord.  Our frend deserves irrigation.   A nip and a glass, if you please.   And, with his permission, the same for me."

Mac now lacked his former graciousness but the landlord, knowing his man, placed the nip close to his hand.  Never would McGreggor risk spilling whiskey.   As an automaton he lifted the glass and said: "Mud in y'eye."

Our stranger accepted the challenge.   He sipped his whiskey, held it awhile as he savoured it, then sank the entire contents in one effortless swallow.   "A very fine whiskey, landlord," he nodded as he picked up the chaser.

"Very fine customers," rejoined mine host.

The man raised his beer in salute, poured it down his throat, turned and walked out through the door.  But my eyes were rivetted on the expression on Mac's face. His hand, that had been conveying spirit toward his mouth, was strangely frozen midway and the whiskey was perilously close to being spilled!   I followed his gaze out through the door and down the road to the departing guest.   He was limping viciously off his left foot.
 

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