The Fallen~Sparrow~Hawk; Negro in the Woodpile

Negro in the Woodpile                                            March 6, 2002

I left the Doon of May for the bike ride to the Isle of Whithorn yesterday at 10.30am. I took the coast road past Port William, Monreith, and Glaserton. I passed Dave painting a house, I had met Dave and Irma the previous year when I drove up with a friend Nick for a May Day festival, I had liked them instantly. Dave said Irma would be home and pleased to see me. Irma, a lovely Dutch woman, actually looked like the portrait of a Dutch woman by Breughel une jollie laide, a Caucasian simian with vibrant eyes. Irma is married twenty years with two children. The ride there is about 18 miles, most of it pretty level, with one major ascent to Monreith. The Maxwell family have, for some centuries, been the Lairds up at Monreith House.

After making me tea and some food after my long bike ride, Irma said “There is a tale that certain inhabitants who carry the surname Jolly are “exceedingly good dancers. The woman responsible for moving from the original draughty house to Monreith house in front of the White Loch apparently had a slave shipped over from Jamaica or aome other island. This slave obviously sowed his wild oats in Dunragit whose gene pool was already very weak through the inevitability of incest over generations, there being only two other surnames. That was prior to the arrival of the black slave 'Jolly’’ according to Irma, due to inbreeding the inhabitants are extremely ugly. So, the descendants of the slave, though white, show signs of ‘good rhythm and their hair is short and tightly curled’. Sounded like a bad joke or a racist cliché. He is, apparently, not talked about, this ancestor. “After siring these half-caste children Jolly attempted to escape. When caught, rumour has it, he was whipped to death. In Monreith house there is a locked room which has a painting in which the slave is depicted. No one else is allowed to see it”.

Irma said that the lady who up and moved to Monreith had it built slap-bang in the middle of a stone circle to get all the energy, selfishly, for herself.

Dunragit and other villages have lost a lot of men in the two wars, along the route are monuments naming the dead; Sad!

I think I’ll have to go investigate the story of Jolly the slave. I should have a word with the caretaker. I looked in the phone book and there is, indeed, a number under that name. I will hang out in the local pub and pick up some local history in Dunragit.

The cycle back was against blustering winds and I’m shattered.

The midwives are coming to inspect Maddy tomorrow. She’s insistent on the place she’s chosen for the bender. The child will come by the end of the month.