Blazing Glen

by Oliver, Marina

  'Did ye meet a dratted Englishman yesterday?'

  'A man asked me the way, but what's that to be making such a fuss? And what if he was English? He was probably looking to find some land to rent. But there's none here. Patrick Sellar has it all, and he's the factor, he decides who rents it from him.'

  If she hoped to distract him she did not succeed. His face, already ruddy from exposure to the weather, turned a darker red.

  'If all he did was ask the way, and all you did was tell him, why should he be so interested in you?'

  'How can I prevent a strange traveller from saying what he wishes?' Janet demanded, exasperated. 'Now let me finish here. Go and say good morning to Mary.'

  Glowering, he swung on his heel and left, but not to visit Mary. Instead he strode further along the narrow track which wound between the small cottages. When Janet came out of the byre carrying the pail of milk she saw him talking earnestly to another young man, one of the band who'd grown up together, who now drank together, and often talked wildly of what they'd like to do to the English.

  They turned and looked at her, and she ignored them. She had butter to churn, a hare one of their neighbours had caught to skin and clean for their supper, and bread to make. She had no time for idle speculation.

  Her tasks, many as they were, did not fill her mind. Time and again her thoughts turned to the previous day, that strange encounter, the kiss which had been so unwelcome, and yet in a way so exciting. Why had the Englishman come? And would she ever see him again?

  ***

  Chapter 2

  A couple of days later Janet was returning from the lochside with two pails of water when she heard children giggling nervously. They were hiding behind a clump of bushes at the end of the path, where it joined the main track through the village. She smiled. They had few worries, no fears for the future when they would have to leave their homes.

  Janet had managed, for most of the time, to drive speculations about the Englishman, memories of his devastating kiss, the feel of his hands holding her tight, from her mind by working at the most exhausting tasks she could devise. It was too disturbing, she told herself, to recall those sensations, or to wonder if he was one of the predatory foreigners who wanted to drive them off the land they'd lived on for centuries. She'd heard of these men, and Iain had encountered them, but she hadn't expected to meet them. Walking along this path, however, did not occupy her thoughts sufficiently, and they returned to Mr Fenton, and once more she felt his lips on hers.

  Then Janet's thoughts were dragged back to the present. From the few words she caught the children seemed to be urging Hamish, a big lad who ought to have been working in the fields, not larking about, to commit some mischief.

  She had almost come up to the children when Hamish suddenly stood up, drew back his arm, and threw something towards the track. There was a startled whinny, a muffled curse, and then a bright chestnut streak as a horse galloped wildly past the end of the path.

  Janet knew that colour, and she ran the last few steps to the corner. The man, her Englishman, was picking himself up from the stony ground and glaring round him. Blood was pouring from a gash above his right eye.

  'Who threw that stone?' he demanded, and heedless of his wound, strode towards the bushes which concealed Hamish and his cronies. Janet set down her pails hastily, and made for the bushes herself, calling angrily to Hamish.

  The boys had melted away. She could hear a few frightened giggles, but these children knew every tree, every hiding place, and if they wanted to vanish they would.

  Angrily she swung round and almost collided with the Englishman. She would have fallen had he not clasped her arm, and as it was she was trembling with anger, and with the shock of seeing him again so suddenly. All too vividly the memory of their first encounter, the feel of his lips on hers, flowed back into her mind.

  'Where did they go?' he demanded. 'The little devils threw a stone and startled my horse. Is this how you bring up children, to attack harmless travellers?'

  She took a deep breath to steady herself. 'I know who it was, I saw him, and you'll not catch them now, Mr Fenton. But I'll see they're punished. You're bleeding. Did the stone hit you? Let me see how badly you're hurt.'

  He shrugged away from her hand. 'Don't fuss, woman. The stone hit my horse on his nose. I hit your cursed stony ground, but I'll not die from a mere cut. I must catch him, make sure he's not hurt.'

  'It's all right, someone's caught him, look.'

  Impatiently he brushed the blood from his eyes. One of the crofters, a small, bent old man, was leading the horse back along the track, talking gently to it as it sidled nervously, eyes wide with fear, its neck flecked with foam.

  'Ye need to keep a firmer grip,' the old one said sternly as he handed the reins to Mr Fenton, with a barely concealed sneer. 'If ye're no' accustomed to riding, ye need to take greater care.'

  The Englishman stiffened, and Janet stifled a grin at the outraged expression on his face. No doubt he considered himself an excellent rider, but in his elegant clothes he would seem like a drawing room dandy to a man like Dougal. He opened his mouth to protest, but some of the blood trickling down his face ran into his mouth and impatiently he spat it out. He turned away and examined the horse, but Janet could see no cuts. The animal had fared better than the master.

  'Come and let me tend the wound,' she said before he could speak. 'Thank you, Dougal. It was that dratted Hamish, he chucked a big stone and hit the horse. No wonder Mr Fenton was unseated.'

  'I was just dismounting,' Mr Fenton explained through gritted teeth. 'But I thank you.'

  He fumbled in his purse for a coin, but Dougal, with a contemptuous sniff, turned away. 'Keep your tainted English money,' he growled. 'We don't want it.'

  'Come, let me see how bad it is before you lose more blood,' Janet urged, and turned to retrieve her pails. Without waiting for him she strode across to the cottage, thumped the pails down outside the door, and pointed to the bench set against the wall. 'Sit there while I get some rags and a salve.'

  She glanced over her shoulder as she entered the cottage, and saw him tethering the horse to the ring set in the wall of the byre. With a hasty word of explanation to her grandmother she collected what she wanted, poured a bowl of clean water from the pitcher she'd filled earlier at the well, and went back outside.

  The cut was not deep, and had almost stopped bleeding. He had wiped away the blood with a handkerchief, and he held out a hand to ward her off as she approached. He'd brushed his hair to one side and she could see a white scar several inches long just on the hairline.

  'I don't need your attentions, Janet Mackay. Not unless you are willing to talk to me as well.'

  'Talk to you? Why? And about what?' She set down the bowl on the bench beside him, dipped in a cloth, and moved towards him.

  He grasped her hand and held it firmly away from his face. She trembled at his touch, the firm smooth fingers which had so much strength in them, and instantly berated herself. She thought she'd managed to control her nervousness at these strange feelings, to thrust the memory of his kiss far down into her mind for most of the time, but this slight contact brought all the sensations flooding back.

  'I want to know what's happening,' he went on, calm and apparently unaware of the effect he was having on her, 'but the crofters are too suspicious of me.'

  'We don't like Englishmen,' she replied quietly. 'Now, for goodness sake let me clean this cut and apply a salve to help it heal.'

  He released her hand, and she forced herself to control the trembling which attacked her because of his nearness, and her recollection of his kisses. She wiped away the blood, patted his forehead dry, and dabbed on the ointment.

  'That should heal in a day or so, and I doubt you'll be scarred. Not like the other. Where did you get that?'

  'Salamanca,' he said briefly.

  'You're a soldier?' she asked, a note of incredulity in her voice. He looked too smooth, too well groomed, to be a soldier. And
then she noticed his broad shoulders, not obvious under the well-cut coat, and the strong muscles of his legs, and recalled the strength in his arms when he'd held her close. 'Why are you here in Scotland?' she added. 'Have you come to persecute us? Has our Countess's husband called in the military to drive poor people off his land?'

  'So many questions,' he said mockingly. 'I was a soldier, but I sold out last year when my father died, as I had to take over running his estates. I've no intention of persecuting anyone. I knew your Countess when I was a child in Paris, when she and her husband were at the Embassy there. My father was posted there at the same time. But they would not remember me, and they do not know I am here, I came on my own account.'

  He didn't say why, she noticed. He must be wealthy, if he had his own estates. He must wish to acquire land in Scotland too, like so many Englishmen.

  She gathered up her things and turned to go into the cottage, to find her grandmother emerging, leaning heavily on a stick. She was looking at the visitor with interest.

  Mr Fenton sprang up to help her, and Mary gave him a slight smile. 'Sit down, lad. Janet, fetch us some ale. It'll be better for our visitor than whisky, and I think he needs to rest awhile.'

  Janet went inside but she could still hear them talking as she poured the ale.

  'My thanks, Mistress Mackay. That is your name?'

  'Yes, it is.'

  'Everyone in the glen seems to bear that name.'

  'Not all of us,' Mary said with a faint chuckle, 'but there are many cousins in Strathnaver, like most clans. When we have to leave, though, we'll be scattered all over Scotland, and beyond.'

  'So I understand. Can nothing be done? Won't your ministers help?'

  'The lairds appoint the ministers, and most of them preach the will of God, and talk of our shortcomings, and just punishment.'

  Janet, carrying two tankards of ale, paused in the doorway to look at them. Her grandmother was unusually animated. Normally she regarded the few strangers who came to the glen with deep suspicion, but she was giving Mr Fenton the benefit of her sweetest smile.

  'I'm beginning to understand the bonds which hold your clans together,' he said.

  Mary nodded. 'Tell me, how did it happen that your horse unseated you? I heard you say you'd been a soldier.'

  He grimaced. 'I was dismounting when some fool threw a stone which hit my horse on the nose. The poor brute started, and knocked me to the ground. I mean to find and punish the fool who could have blinded him.'

  'It was Hamish,' Janet put in, 'but by now he'll be way up into the hills, and not back until nightfall. Here is your ale.'

  'Thank you. Perhaps you can direct me to Hamish's father? It's not revenge for my loss of dignity,' he added, and Janet suppressed a smile. 'It was a foolish, dangerous thing to do, and he needs to be taught a lesson.'

  'Leave it to his father,' Mary advised. 'He'll thrash him. but if you tried to his father would be more likely to try and thrash you. The English are not welcome here.'

  He raised his eyebrows slightly. Eyebrows, Janet noticed, which were particularly well-shaped. 'So I have noticed. Yet you have an English overlord,' he said mildly. 'Or should I say laird? Is that the term?'

  'The Countess Elizabeth's our laird, not her English husband,' Mary told him. 'She's still the Countess in Sutherland. We have no truck with English titles.'

  'That hasn't stopped him interfering in our lives,' Janet added swiftly. 'He has wealth beyond counting, but he insists on raising the rents so much his tenants cannot pay, and then he turns them from their homes. No decent laird would behave so.'

  'Others have done so,' Mary said beneath her breath. Then she shook her head as if to clear it of such thoughts. 'Our guest doesn't want to hear about that,' she said more loudly, her voice harsh and unshed tears glistening in her eyes.

  Janet turned abruptly and went to put away the salve and the bowl she'd used, but she could still hear their words, and she paused, listening, her lips twisted into a smile of disbelief.

  'On the contrary, I am here to make a survey,' Mr Fenton was explaining. 'Perhaps I should not dignify it with such a high-sounding title, but my old commanding officer knew I had business in Glasgow, and he asked me to travel here first and judge, so far as a stranger, an Englishman, can, the extent of the unrest here.'

  'Now Napoleon is defeated, sent to Elba, is the English army looking for new excitement here?' Janet demanded, returning to stand again in the doorway.

  'Hush, child. There has been unrest for two generations or more, since the best of our boys fell to English swords,' Mary said, so softly that Janet could scarcely hear.

  'You mean Culloden?'

  'Aye, but much worse now. The chiefs don't care for their people as they used, they want higher rents so that they can flaunt themselves in finery, even as far away as London.'

  'Not for the improvements?'

  Janet could stand and listen to this in silence no more. She strode out of the cottage and stood, hands on hips, in front of him.

  'Why do we need roads and bridges?' she demanded. 'It will only make it easier for foreigners to come here, to take our land, to patronise us for not living as they do!'

  'Janet, my dear, our guest isn't responsible for that,' Mary intervened.

  Janet shook her head impatiently. Mr Fenton was looking at her, a slight frown on his face.

  'Surely it will help you too?' he asked quietly. 'Better roads will mean the fishermen can take their catch to market, on carts, and faster, instead of so slowly on the backs of donkeys that the fish stinks by the time it reaches the buyers.'

  'Fishermen, yes, but the crofters grow just enough for themselves. We have little to spare for selling, apart from the occasional sheep or cattle. The roads are to help those who want to breed hundreds of sheep on these hills, large flocks, driving us out to make room for them.'

  'Is that what is happening? Here?'

  'Yes, as in many parts of Sutherland,' Mary said, sighing.

  Janet couldn't wait for her grandmother's quiet explanation. 'Some of the people went after the Forty-five, for fear of reprisals. Now the lairds want us all to go, and the Ministers preach at us to be obedient. At first it was by persuasion,' she said scornfully. 'Go to Canada, there's good land aplenty there, and we'll pay your passage,' she mimicked. 'What they didn't say was that half the folk died on the journey, crammed into filthy ships, starved, and those who survived that hell were so weak they couldn't lift a spade to till the soil!'

  'Not all suffered so,' Mary reproved her. 'You know some are doing well, as Iain will.'

  'Iain?' Mr Fenton asked.

  Janet turned aside. She couldn't trust him. He was English, working for the military. It was because he had opposed the soldiers that Iain, her much-loved brother, had been forced to flee, to leave his beloved Scotland and face the hazards of life in a strange, possibly dangerous new country.

  Mary was explaining. 'My grandson,' she said quietly. 'He left Strathnaver last year to go to Nova Scotia. At least we know he's arrived safely, and soon, when I am gone, Janet will go to join him.'

  Janet was thinking about the night Iain had struggled home, his arm broken where a soldier had clubbed him, deep cuts in one thigh from a sword, and his face heavily bruised. It had been good fortune which had enabled him to evade the soldiers looking for him, and they had hidden him in Mary's bed.

  She smiled to recall how they had tricked the soldiers. Iain had been buried under the feather mattress so that he could scarce breathe, while Mary lay on top of the mattress beside him, feathers shaken to her side to hide the lump he made. Thanks to some artistic painting of blotches on her healthy skin, and several hot bricks wrapped in blankets and placed around her to cause sweating, she was so hot to touch that her claim of high fever and infection had been believed. Burning some foul-smelling plants on their small fire had made the atmosphere foetid, and the soldiers, after a cursory glance around, had retreated rapidly.

  Afterwards Iain, almost choking, h
ad vowed he'd rather have been taken. Janet, who had heard about conditions in some of the prisons, knew he didn't mean it. Had the hold of the ship which had carried him to Nova Scotia been as bad, she wondered. He hadn't said much in his letter, just thankfulness to have arrived safely, and reassurances that his prospects of acquiring land further west had been good.

  Mr Fenton was accepting Mary's offer of broth, simmering over the fire, and some of the bread Janet had made the previous day. Janet sighed. The tasks she had planned, the clearing and scouring of the byre now it was warm enough to turn the cow out during the day, would have to wait. More importantly, his presence was unsettling, a distraction she did not want.

  She fetched a stool and placed it for a table in front of them, then filled two wooden bowls with the broth and took them outside. She took her own bowl and sat a few yards away on a fallen log, able to hear but not joining in their conversation.

  She'd rarely seen Mary so animated since Iain left. She almost preened, revelling in the attentions of a handsome young man, so that Janet felt ashamed for her, the first time she had ever allowed herself to criticise her grandmother. Then she felt angry with herself for that lack of generosity. Maybe Mary in some way associated Mr Fenton with Iain. He was, in his height and the colour of his hair, a little like Iain, and Mary knew she'd never again see her beloved grandson.

  That was the fault of the English! Their Countess Elizabeth's English husband had wanted to increase his already vast fortune. Some said he was the richest man in England, and the dowry he had received with his wife had consisted of two thirds of Sutherland. But it was poor land, and the rents were low because the people had barely enough to support themselves. They could not afford the higher rents he demanded.

  Suddenly some words of Mr Fenton's broke through her abstraction, and she listened intently.

  'The land cannot support all the people here, I'm told, so is not emigration the answer? Will they not be healthier, with better prospects, in a place like Canada, where the land is rich and fertile?'