There was much I did not understand or know. How much of it did I care about?
I used a stick to scrub the pots and dishes until they were as clean as I could make them.
Now, I wished to see my horse, Blackfoot. So I left the pots on the ground, where they could dry in the sun, and went towards the stable. Blackfoot and Bess’s horse, Merlin, snickered as they saw me. I rubbed their noses. The hay in the manger was damp and unpleasant. This was the time of year when fodder from the previous autumn would be at its worst, beginning to moulder. They should be outside, eating what new grass they might find. I found some dusty meal in a bin and gave them some from my hands. The soft flutter of their lips against my palms was warm and familiar to me.
“We will ride you later,” I said to them. I was about to leave the stable, when I heard a noise in the yard – a clattering, and voices. I hurried out.
A man drove a cart. It was Hamish. Next to him sat a man dressed all in black. A churchman. The minister. On the back of the cart, a dark cloth covered something large.
Hamish helped the man out of his cart and led him across the yard towards the main cottage, holding onto his arm at the elbow. The minister was blind, that much was obvious. He looked like a crow, hunched and black, walking with a birdlike gait, picking his feet up high and placing them down cautiously. He held a stick before him.
After watching them go, I gathered up the pots and went to tell Jeannie that the minister had arrived. I thought he must have come to deal with the body of Old John.
I was correct only in part.
Chapter Twenty
I did not wish to watch what the minister might do with the body. Nor did I wish to intrude on the grief that the family must show. “Bess and I should ride the horses,” I said to Jeannie, as I saw her go towards the main cottage. “They need exercise,” I explained.
“Calum will go wi’ ye.” He had come from behind one of the cottages.
“There is no need.”
“Aye, there is need. There are scoundrels and gipsies and villains o’ all sorts. ’Tis no’ safe for strangers.”
Nor was it safe for natives, I thought to myself, thinking of that old man’s slit throat. Perhaps, too, she did not yet trust us. Perhaps she was right not to.
“I’ll go too,” said Iona. It was not my wish that either of them should come.
“Ye’ll no’,” said Jeannie firmly. By chance, I looked at her as she said this. I thought I saw her shiver.
“Ye’ll help the men,” said Jeannie. Iona turned swiftly, anger on her face, and flounced her way into the cottage, skirts swinging below her tiny waist.
And so Calum came alone with me and Bess. I did not wish for his company or like it. I do not think he had favoured us with more than two words and a blank look since we had arrived there the day before. It was not possible to tell what he thought of us, or of anything.
My doubts and my dark mood lifted as we rode out of the yard into the sunshine. We followed Calum on his long-haired, thickset pony, and rode towards the hills. When Thomas heard that we were riding out, he said we should go to Old John’s hut and retrieve his few possessions.
With the sun and the sea behind us we travelled north. A dark forest covered part of one hillside, somewhat to our left, its edges clear and stark. On another hillside, yellow gorse stubbled the landscape, newly blooming. Soon we left the road, and to the sides of our path I saw patches of flowers, yellows and pinks and whites. The chill of the North was in the air, though on our backs there was some warmth in the sun.
Blackfoot felt powerful under my thighs, dancing to the music of spring. At a stream, we stopped, and dismounted to let them drink and eat new grass.
Bess was trying to talk to Calum, I noticed. She asked the name of his pony and complimented him on his riding – as she had complimented me on mine when first she met me, I remembered. I did not think him as good a rider as I.
She asked him about his uncles. His short answers told me nothing I did not already know. That Red was always arguing with Thomas, his brother; that Hamish lived over the hill and was married and had children; that Billy was weak in the head, but was strong and a good fighter.
“Why did Hamish not come to the cave with us?” I asked, more so that I could be part of the conversation than because I wanted to know. Since I had no plan to stay here long enough to need to know, it was of no interest to me.
“His wife does no’ like him to. She has some idea o’ him as a merchant.” Calum smiled. It was the first time I had seen him do so and I saw now how wide his mouth was. “And that he is! He plays no part in the smuggling, as far as his wife knows, but he deals in the goods afterwards. Along wi’ his friend, the minister.”
The blind minister! Turning a blind eye, in truth!
“And you?” I asked now.
“Me?”
“Is this what you wish to do? For ever?”
The boy looked blankly back at me. A hostile look flashed in his eyes and he tossed his hair back. “How no’?”
And now Bess spoke. “Why should he not, Will? Is it not a way of taking from the wealthy what is not theirs by right? Just as we do?”
“Aye!” said Calum. Did I imagine it or did he really seem to move a step closer to her? “The taxes! What right have they to take a part o’ what’s ours? Why should we no’ buy salt and whisky and malt without that they take a part o’ it?”
I said nothing. Ideas such as this were not new to me any more. There had been a man I’d met once, shortly after meeting Bess, and his wife must wash their clothes in cow dung because the tax on soap had made it too expensive. I knew that this was not right. But….
But I did not like the alternative. I found no pleasure in anything about the lives of these people. A highwayman’s life with Bess had been one thing, a life of adventure, just the two of us. And we could manage on our own, could we not? But this, this complicated group of people, with their whisky and their fighting, this did not feel like something I could be part of. And the old woman, and her fury, her ancient, futile bitterness – she especially I did not like.
Bess and Calum moved towards the horses and mounted. I followed. We rode on, the two of them riding slightly ahead, so that I could not quite hear all they said. Once Bess turned round in the saddle, smiling at me. “Isn’t this a beautiful place, Will?” she said.
I did not want to disagree with her, so I nodded. And indeed, it was. No one could deny the beauty in the rolling hills, some gentle, some rugged, the range of colours, the light and dark splashed across the slopes, the shining sea behind us, the scents and sounds and shades of spring.
It was not enough.
Chapter Twenty-One
We came to Old John’s hut at around midday. A patch of dirty clouds now covered the sun as they swept in from the west, but I could see its steely glow above us. We were silent as we approached, and I could not help but look around cautiously, expecting armed men to leap from behind any bush or boulder. Did the old man’s spirit linger here?
It seemed much longer than two nights since we had fallen asleep in the hut and woken to find the shepherd murdered and lying in his own blood by the stream. I remembered Bess’s mood too, one of gloom, even despair. She had not wished to take Tam with us: I wondered where we would be now if we had followed her advice. But now she seemed light of heart again, and to burn with something like her usual spirit.
I was glad to see her this way once more, though I did not know what had changed her. Perhaps her earlier sadness had come merely from exhaustion, and the memories of losing her cottage to the redcoats’ wilful destruction? And now perchance she had put such thoughts to the back of her mind and was living for the moment once more?
I did not know, not then.
I had noticed that she wore her locket, containing her father’s ring, outside her clothing, but I thought perhaps this was because there was now no danger of it being stolen.
We dismounted from the horses. Bess reached out to touch
Calum’s arm and pointed down towards the place by the stream where we had found Old John’s body. Calum said nothing, but his face looked grim and he nodded. She touched his arm again, as though to comfort him.
“Bess, come this way,” I called. I thought she should leave Calum to his own thoughts. It was his great-grandfather who had died here.
But Calum turned to us now. “I would kill them myself,” he snarled.
We looked at him.
“Our enemies,” he said. “The men who killed my great-grandfather.”
“Reivers?”
“No’ reivers. Douglas Murdoch and his men.”
“Tell us more of Douglas Murdoch,” said Bess.
Calum frowned, his mouth tightening. “An evil man. A Highlander by birth, a Jacobite. No friend o’ the English and no friend o’ ours. His father has land up north and he threw his son out when he could no’ control him. There was talk o’ him cheating in a duel and killing a man. Douglas Murdoch owns much land here. He builds walls on common pasture so we can no’ graze our sheep. And he grows richer. He takes what he wants and he has his own men who fight for him. All good men round here hate him. But we are afeard o’ him.”
“How are you sure he killed your great-grandfather? Might it not be reivers?”
“No. This has the mark o’ Douglas Murdoch. And he has taken our sheep afore. Because we would no’ give him what he wanted.”
“What did he want?”
“At first, he wanted money. Everyone in these parts pays him, else his men cause damage, fearsome damage. We paid him for many years, but then Red said we must no’. We stopped paying Douglas Murdoch, so his men stole our sheep in revenge. That was many months ago. And then…” Calum paused.
“And then?”
“Then they burnt our winter fodder and we had nothing for our ponies. And he said if we gave them our ponies, and started paying again, they would leave us alone. But we couldna lose the ponies. Then he saw something they wanted even more. My sister. They tried to take her one day, two months back, but he had sent only three men and we fought them off. One o’ them was hurt – he’ll no’ fight again, I think. Douglas Murdoch said we’d be sorry. This is how he thought to make us sorry. And it’ll no’ stop here.” He looked afraid, and I did not blame him.
But Iona. They would take Iona?
“They would steal her? Like a chattel?” asked Bess.
“For a wife?” I demanded, in disbelief.
“Mebbe. If Murdoch liked her. Or he’d sell her. Some other laird’s son would pay a good price. Or the gipsies would. Douglas Murdoch wouldna mind, if he took what is ours. ’Tis his way,” he continued, seeing our unbelieving faces. “He takes all he wants. We have paid more money than we can afford since then and he has taken it, but if he wants Iona he’ll have her too. He has not tried since the other time – perhaps he is content wi’ what we pay now, but he might change his mind. And now Iona must no’ go out alone, for her safety. ’Tis his way, to make us live in fear, no’ knowing what he might do next.”
“If everyone hates him so, why do you not all join together, and stand against him?” Bess asked.
“No one dares join us. Bad fortune follows us and the world knows it. And now that they have done such a thing as murder, ’tis worse.”
Perhaps they were tainted by bad fortune. But they were also mired in their own struggle. If they fought fire with fire, would they not be burnt? Was there not a better way to stop the fighting? A better way to live?
Surely the law would help them? I asked this now.
Calum laughed. “The law is no’ for the likes o’ us! The law is for the lairds who want to take our land from us for their crops and their cows, so we canna graze our sheep on the common land. The law is for the King, who wants to take our money in taxes. We make our laws and follow God – that’s what my father and my grandfather say. If a lawman came to our dwelling, my uncle Red would as soon fight wi’ him as ask for his help.”
We were silent.
How could something like this end?
Chapter Twenty-Two
Once we had taken the few possessions from the hut, we made our way back in near silence.
On our way, a strange incident occurred. We were trotting gently along the track towards the road. A curlew flew up with a cry from some reeds in the wet ground some yards away, followed by its mate. I was riding a little ahead of the others and it was a few moments before I realized that Calum had ridden his pony off the track and was galloping towards the reeds. I watched him search for something on the ground, his pony’s feet sinking into the thick, sticky marsh. He seemed to find what he was looking for, and with a cry of pleasure, he made his pony move on the same spot, kicking and hauling on the reins at the same time, so that the pony did not know which way to go and only stamped and jibbed. After a few moments of this, he rode back to us, satisfaction on his face.
Bess and I looked to him in puzzlement. “A curlew’s nest. I destroyed it.”
“Why?”
“Because curlews are no’ loved by God.”
“But why?” I repeated.
“They betrayed the hiding-places o’ the Covenanters. When they tried to worship God in their Conventicles. Their secret places o’ worship. In my great-grandmother’s time. My own ancestors,” he said, with some aggression.
“But they are birds! They know nothing!”
He looked flustered “We have always done it.” His voice was lame. He turned away.
We rode on, in silence again. I remembered how one of the men had shot the curlew when we had been riding to the farm on that very first occasion. It had seemed like a sport at the time. Did their anger go so deep?
As we reached the yard, Calum held out a hand to help Bess dismount. She did not need such help, and yet she took it.
Hamish’s pony and cart still stood by the water trough. Mouldy sat on a stool at the door, tying metal hooks onto fishing-lines, a net in a heap by his side, and a lobster pot or somesuch. He nodded to us as we approached. Inside, the minister sat in the best chair, by the fire, shoulders stooped and all in black. His eyes, I now saw, were lacy-white and wide. And yet, they did not seem empty. They seemed to see, and yet I knew they could not.
A long wooden box, a coffin, sat on the ground. The body of the old man lay inside it, wrapped round with a clean cloth which showed the contours of his bony face. But the coffin was nearly full with something else, too: the bottles of whisky and bags of salt that we had brought from the cave the night before were stacked around the corpse, pushed into every crevice, distorting its shape. Red was standing inside the entrance to the underground passage, halfway up the ladder, only his head and massive shoulders visible. He was passing packages up to Hamish, who was stacking them inside the coffin. Another man was below Red, handing them to him.
Old Maggie was asleep on the box-bed, her face soft and peaceful now, her damaged cheek hidden from view. Tam was lying beside her, and his eyes lit up when he saw me and Bess. I smiled briefly at him, because I felt sorry for him, but I did not go to him. I did not wish him to form an affection for me.
That coffin was heavy. I know because I helped carry it to Hamish’s cart, where we secured it and covered it with a black cloth. Hamish helped the blind minister onto the cart. Not a word did the man say, he simply sat, hunched, his fingers clutching the sides of his cloak round him, his white eyes wandering. Did he know what was stuffed in the coffin with the corpse? Perhaps he did not. Perhaps he did.
They rode out of the yard. Those left behind looked at each other.
“We’ll keep careful watch tonight,” said Jock. “Murdoch’s men will be angry again.”
“Why?” asked Calum.
Jock paused. “We will no’ pay the cut.”
Calum’s shock was clear. “But we agreed! We decided! To stop them taking Iona and to make peace!”
“Peace!” said Red, with a snort. “Ye ken nothing, lad. We’ll no’ make peace by doing what they want. They’ll
take more and more until we’ve nothing left at all!”
Jock spoke now. “Red is right: if we always pay, they will ask for more. We’ll no’ pay taxes to the King so why should we pay Douglas Murdoch and his men?”
“But they will take Iona!” cried Calum.
Thomas shot his son a furious look. “Dinna argue wi’ us. ’Tis for grown men to judge.” Calum looked at the ground and Thomas turned away now, as though he cared nothing what his son might think. Calum said nothing more.
“Aye, they may try to take Iona,” said Red, “but they dinna ken that there are two more o’ us now, and good horses, and pistols. Now is the time to strike. We can surprise them when they come, teach them a lesson they’ll no’ forget. They took our sheep; they murdered our kin. They will pay. We are agreed.” Jock, Thomas and Red, all had faces set firm.
Calum nodded now, as though he had been swayed entirely by their words and would do everything they said. He had nothing more to say, only, “Aye. They should pay.”
I did not like this. I did not like it at all. This was not our battle. I could not say where it would end but it seemed to me no good could come of it.
But I did not say so. Another thought came to me. “But they do not know you have a cargo from last night. So they will not know you have not paid.”
Thomas shook his head. “They’ll ken. And they will come for their share. Perhaps no’ today. Or tomorrow. But news will reach them that a cargo was run at our cave – these things are no secret. Even the excisemen sometimes ken – and we give ’em their share to keep them quiet. When Douglas Murdoch finds the truth, then will he come. And we will be ready.”
I tried now to sound the voice of reason. “But when will it ever stop? If you hurt them, will they not come back in greater numbers, for revenge? Will it not simply continue. For ever? Or until you are all dead?”
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