Their hounds! Alec shivered when he thought of this added, very deadly danger. The dogs at Eilan Donan were an ill-cared-for, mangy, mongrel lot, but they were trained to follow scent and fierce enough under such masters to threaten dangerous wounds.
But quick on his sudden fear Alec thought of a remedy. Both that and a plan for his immediate move, for the two went together. He was hungry now and very tired but he dared not eat nor rest though his bundle promised both stored food and warmth. Instead, he fastened the bundle to his back and with his hands searched about and found the remains of the vixen’s lair, deserted by the whole fox family in disgust at his frequent visits.
With the strong-smelling leaves, grass tussocks and old excrement held in both hands Alec wriggled out of the broch on all fours, crawled along the faint remains of animal tracks in the dewy turf, laying the fox scent as he moved, until he came to the side of the burn, when he smeared some on the stones in the stream and laid the rest on the far shore.
After that he took to the burn himself, first washing his bands and clothes clean, then stepping from pool to pool in long strides as fast as he was able, all the time listening for any sound of oars or howls of men or beasts. None came to him. The burn narrowed, its outline grew confused, at last it ended or rather he reached its beginning where a little spring spurted from a cushion of moss between two tree trunks.
From this point the hill flattened and presently began to drop into a valley, still clothed in fir and birch with a deep layer of dead branches and matted undergrowth to check his progress. When he stood still all was silent: in this dark and secret wood even the birds made no song. Weak from the long night’s work, faint from lack of sleep and his growing hunger, Alec plunged on. No one could move silently in this place with such a brittle, tangled footing. He had heard no sound so presumably no one had heard him. But fear still drove him forward, his unquenchable purpose still upheld him. Only when the ground levelled again and the trees thinned and solid grassy earth helped his slow steps forward did he stand again to listen.
Again the silence came round him like a heavy curtain cutting him off from the world. He was not pursued and ahead of him the open valley stretched, sunlit, sparkling, with a thread of blue smoke behind a clump of thick bushes about a half mile distant. A narrow track led down the centre of the valley. It came, Alec saw, from the hill behind him, no doubt the continuation of the way that led up from the loch side, avoiding the broch. If he had taken this path instead of his elaborate and exhausting way among the trees, he might have passed this spot an hour or more ago.
He was inclined to curse his excessive caution as he forced himself on towards the plume of smoke. But he had not gone above half the distance when he realised how unfit he now was for any human encounter, even a friendly one. He sank down behind a spreading bush of broom from where, well hidden, he could see both the winding track and the trees through which he had struggled. Almost at once, against his will, he fell asleep.
He woke, as suddenly, some hours later, with the sun high above him, striking hotly through his closed eyelids. He started up, seeing the whole world as a tossing red mass. When his vision returned and he knew he was still hidden behind the broom in the pleasant valley he first thanked God for his continued safety, then unfastened his bundle and ate some of the bread he had stored there. It was dry and hard but he chewed steadily, only regretting the burn at the broch that had so often refreshed him. He was minded to ask at the place, farmstead or hovel, from which the smoke in the distance still mounted, but he decided against this. If the pursuit he still expected came over the hill the men would ask for news of him and would get it no doubt. Whether true or invented the men of Eilan Donan would get a positive answer promptly. So it had better be a false one. He had better travel on with all speed and unseen.
It was late that same afternoon when Alec came to the shore of the Sound of Sleat, at a spot from which he saw, after a cautious approach, that boats moved to and fro across the narrow waters. He had heard of a ferry that worked between this place and Kylrhea on the Island of Skye. He determined to cross over if he could do so without risk. The shores of the mainland at this point were steep, as were those of Skye opposite. He had thought vaguely he might steal a boat to make the crossing, but to carry out such a plan in such a forbidding spot was not promising.
So presently, when the ferry did arrive to take on an assembled small group of persons, Alec stood among them, modestly keeping his distance and enough space about him to make a sudden escape if such should be necessary.
The ferry boat arrived; a rickety, flat-bottomed barge, with a platform amidships on which baggage, produce and even livestock could be placed, with the passengers standing fore and aft, while the craft was winched over across the Sound on a great continuous iron chain operated from either landing stage.
The ferryman came ashore to direct the travellers. The first three caused no trouble. Their bundles were small, easily stowed. In front of Alec there was an elderly man holding by a halter a highly suspicious she-ass that had a loose foal at foot. When the man stepped forward, dragging the unwilling animal towards the platform on the boat, the foal sprang away up the hard. The ass planted her feet, drew in her neck. The old man stopped, the ferryman shouted. The foal came back to its mother and began to nuzzle for milk.
During the argument that followed Alec waited patiently. He did not know if he was expected to pay for his passage nor if that was so, how much. He had no money and could only give a material object in exchange, perhaps his spoon or his drinking horn. This might arouse suspicion and deny him his passage. Time was passing and at any moment shouts, perhaps a flung spear, might herald the arrival of his enemies.
So he waited, outwardly patient, inwardly seething. The argument went on in flowing Gaelic, much of which Alec did not understand. But he did gather that the ferryman insisted the ass must embark willingly together with its foal and the pair stand quietly on the platform during the short voyage. The old man repeatedly explained his difficulty. He could not force the ass to move without her young and he had no control of this nervous infant.
Alec saw his opportunity, a means both of ending the argument and securing his passage.
‘If ye’ll allow me to take the little one,’ he said in his imperfect Gaelic, ‘no doubt the dam will follow.’
Without waiting for permission he grabbed the foal, lifted it off its feet, in spite of its kicking and squealing and strode with it to the platform, still holding it in his arms.
The result was violent, but successful. The she-ass started forward, nearly dragging its owner off his feet. It leaped to the platform, the whole barge rocking under the impact. The ferryman followed, pushing the old man before him. The other passengers stretched willing hands to steady those on the platform. The winchmen on Skye, seeing the ferry’s complement embarked, bent to their task and with shouts of alarm and encouragement, hysterical brays from the ass and renewed squeals from the foal, the unseaworthy vessel set out on its precarious journey.
Since this day was as mild and windless as the one before, with a flat sea and only the incoming tide to set the barge aslant its course, the crossing was achieved in safety. Alec led the way to the shore still carrying the foal, which he set down hastily when he heard shouts and laughter behind him. The ass had broken away from her master when she saw her offspring again retreating a prisoner and calling for help. She plunged at Alec, who saw his peril just in time to step out of her way. The laughter was renewed. The foal, reunited with its dam, ran under her again to suckle, but she pushed it off and led the way soberly up a narrow steep track to a clump of rough grass where she stopped to graze as if nothing whatever unusual had occurred.
‘I thank thee heartily for thy prompt aid,’ the old man said to Alec. He had an open bag of coins in his hand. ‘Ye will take the fare for the crossing from me.’
Alec made a faint protest before giving way gratefully, as he had to do if he was not to reveal his penury.
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br /> These others have sworn ye are a MacRae and on no proper errand?’ the old man went on in a lower voice.
That am I not,’ Alec answered quickly and raising his voice said, ‘There be tall men in other parts of the land, not only beside Loch Duich. I came up the coast from Mallaig and Hourn. I am a fisherman, a seaman. I would find me a ship in Skye to go south again.’
The ferryman had drawn close, together with the other passengers. The winchmen also left their station to join the little crowd.
‘Fisherman, say’st, Seaman? Aye, ’tis very possible,’ they murmured.
Others joined in the comment.
‘Ye saw how he held the foal?’
‘’Tis a ninny, by the looks of it. A strong little cross-bred.’
‘Firm as a rock he stood on that rickety old stage—a seaman, if ever I saw one.’
‘Make up to Kinloch, lad, behind the hills, and follow the river back to the Sound, then over to Oronsay. There be fishers come and go there among the Isles.’
Alec asked the ferryman to repeat this advice, for he had not taken it all in. But a voice from one of the passengers called out, ‘Not a MacRae? I think the man lies! Are not those thy kinsmen that yell and leap on the hard to get a crossing?’
Alec said quickly, ‘No kinsmen, I swear it by the Holy Cross! Mine enemies, who would have my life!’
A heavy sigh, almost a groan, went up from the travellers. The old man moved away to his ass, seized her halter and tugged her into action. Two others set off behind him up the track. The winchmen ran to their machine to make it fast against the efforts of those on the farther shore. But the ferryman and the remaining passengers closed about Alec.
‘I would not embroil ye in my quarrel,’ he said steadily, wondering if they meant to deliver him to Eilan Donan or would help his further escape. It seemed unlikely they would let him find his own way out of this encounter, since they had stopped his immediate departure.
There has been word already,’ the ferryman said. ‘From those fleeing to Kyle word came to Kyleakin of the night’s bloody raid nigh to Dornie. And of a constable, Torquil MacGilchrist, dead on the field.’
Alec said nothing. So the ferryman had known, guessed, all along. He had raised no objection, asked no question, save whether his fugitive passenger were himself a MacRae.
Across the water the two on the hard, tired of shouting and jumping about, had sat down to wait. They were still alone, a fact remarked upon with satisfaction by the passenger who had accused Alec.
‘If ye are no MacRae, lad, what made ye with those pirates of Eilan Donan?’
‘I was their prisoner,’ Alec said. ‘I freed myself.’
The ferryman said, ‘We stand here on MacDonald land. The chieftain protects us and Glenelg too and the barge. There is no danger for us. MacDonald men will come when they hear of this happening. But it would be well ye should not come into the story nor be known to the MacDonald or ye might find yoursel’ a hostage to be bargained over.’
‘Good friends,’ said Alec, ‘give me direction and I will find my way over the hills to the river ye spoke of and so to Oronsay.’
‘lf he hath truly rid us of that devil of Eilan Donan I will even be his guide till we have him safe with the fisherfolk,’ a new voice said. It came from a traveller who had not spoken before. ‘I have a debt to pay in that quarter and will gladly discharge it.’
Amid grunts of approval and good wishes Alec set off with his new friend, the others moving up from the shore with them until they came to the turn of the road. Alec shouldered his new companion’s pack as well as his own so that he could stoop forward and partly disguise his height.
‘The MacRaes were puzzled by our movements,’ the other man said a little later. ‘I looked back as we came to the corner. They were still sitting in fierce argument, it seemed. Still alone. They will not relish waiting there after dark nor anywhere else on that shore and so far from home. They have given cause enough at Glenelg to set the folk at them if they be alone.’
‘But the ferry?’
‘Will stay here the night, I doubt not and in the morn, with a party of the MacDonaid on board will clear the whole of Mam Ratachan of those murdering wolves, please God.’
‘Amen to that,’ said Alec, fervently.
By this time the sun, though still bright and hot, was beginning to sink lower in the sky, now and then hidden by the high peaks of the Cuillins that rose in the west beyond the valley where the two were walking.
After the excitements of the ferry crossing, when Alec had put out his strength without thought for his continuing exhaustion and thirst, he now began to weaken, finding the double burden he carried too much for his failing powers. His companion soon noticed his distress and after insisting upon a halt very soon discovered the cause of it. Moreover he had a flask of water with him and some fragments of food, all of which were stale and the water tepid. But he forced them upon Alec with regrets for his former lack of observation.
‘We have need to climb the hills presently, if we would avoid Kinloch,’ he said. ‘I’ll not have thee die of privation afore I can reach my home. Nor delay us till we be benighted and suspect to any MacDonald that may be on an errand from Knock or Armadale.’
‘What or who be they?’ asked Alec, for whom the names held a sinister sound.
‘Castles by the Sound for our defence from marauders, whether they be Irish or freebooters or the English in their frigates or simply our unfriendly neighbours.’
Alec said nothing but put up an inward prayer that he might be delivered safely from this land of wasps and hornets where warfare was the rule and comfortable peace as rare as famine was frequent.
When his strength was partially restored, Alec’s new friend led him on after relieving him of the extra bundle he had carried this far. In later life Alec tried to retrace their journey over the hills in his mind. But without a map or chart of any kind, without another visit to those parts, a project he never for a moment entertained, it was impossible. He remembered a gruelling walk at a forced pace across heather, round boggy moss, over scree, among rocks, until at last, in the hollow of a hillside, his guide and companion halted beside a small hut at whose door he knocked. After an interval and an argument conducted in such rapid Gaelic, in such low voices that Alec did not understand a word, the door was opened and they passed into a dark interior where only a glowing brazier showed that there were other inhabitants beside the man who had let them in.
But his memory of the hospitality he found in that poor hovel remained with him in heart-warming clarity for the rest of his life: more food and drink, hot and satisfying this time, and a pile of dry heath to sink into afterwards; no questions asked, but in answer to his own demand to know the reason for such trust and kindness the full and dreadful story of his guide’s ruin at the hands of the MacRae. The poor man had lost his farmstead, his cattle and his crops. His wife and children had sunk in Loch Alsh as he had tried to take them to safety on a raft of logs. He had been picked up himself, half-drowned, but the others had vanished. Even their bodies never reappeared.
The terrible story kept Alec awake until the others settled themselves for the night, but after that he slept without moving until the sun was well up in the sky. His friend of the day before had gone, but left a message to the effect that he was bound himself for Oronsay and if Alec made his way to that island he would find the fisherfolk prepared for his arrival.
So, with a bowl of porridge inside him and a mixed tale of instructions to direct his steps, Alec went on his way again, his bundle lighter of the drinking horn and the small platter that he had pressed upon his hosts, much to their delight. He found his way to the river some miles to the east of Kinloch and before noon came to its mouth, with the island of Oronsay hugging the shores of Skye upon the southerly horizon.
Chapter Four
Alec found a fleet of six fishing boats riding at anchor off Oronsay, seemingly deserted by their crews. But when he made his way to the shor
es of the Sound a young boy who was throwing stones into the water left his game to approach him.
‘Be you the fisherman my father is told to expect?’ the lad asked in his soft Celtic speech.
‘I reckon so,’ Alec answered. ‘A friend told me yestereen he would speak for me here at Oronsay.’
‘Aye. Then I think you be he,’ the boy said gravely. ‘A tall man with a red beard and rough, outlandish clothing.’
His eyes were wary in case Alec resented this impudence. But when he saw the stranger’s mouth widen in a grin and his blue eyes glint with laughter he burst into a shrill laugh himself.
‘Then follow me,’ he said. ‘My father hath need of a strong man for the nets. He sails on the tide this night if the wind serves.’
The business was soon settled. The fisherman, who was a MacDonald, had lost a man in a storm a week ago, a northern storm that Alec remembered for its wild ferocity. It had dealt some damage to the boats at Eilan Donan, though the castle was a fair distance inland and protected by high hills from northern gales. MacDonald had been caught in Cuillin Sound and had with difficulty managed to creep into Loch Seavaig near Elgol where he lay three days until the storm blew out and he could return home to Oronsay. His lost crew’s body had been found cast upon the island of Soay at the mouth of Seavaig.
Alec, without giving exact detail of his real reason for fleeing Eilan Donan, made it plain to the skipper that he must leave this part of the Highlands and not return.
‘That suits me well,’ MacDonald answered. ‘I have a brother on the Isle of Mull who will join me there. We take our catch to Oban and according to the weather make another trawl by Islay and the North Channel.’
‘I would go south,’ Alec said, ‘into England, but to the western parts there.’
Over the Seas Page 4
