To A Far Country

by Oliver, Marina

  TO A FAR COUNTRY

  BY

  MARINA OLIVER

  When the Marquess of Stafford wants to clear his land of crofters to make way for sheep, Jamie and Flora Lennox, with their baby daughter, decide to go to Nova Scotia to start a new life.

  As tacksman, Jamie feels responsible for the people of his glen, and helps those who wish to go to Glasgow, either to seek work there or emigrate.

  The leaving of the glen is heart-rending, and soon more disasters strike.

  Can they survive in this new, raw land? Will they find happiness in their new lives?

  To A Far Country

  By Marina Oliver

  Copyright © 2011 Marina Oliver

  Smashwords Edition

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Cover Design by Debbie Oliver

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form, including digital and electronic or mechanical, without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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  See details of other books by Marina Oliver at

  http://www.marina-oliver.net

  AUTHOR NOTE

  The Highland Clearances were a disgraceful episode in Scottish history, yet resulted in many Scotsmen and women emigrating to Canada, where they were instrumental in helping this vast new country to grow and flourish. The hardships endured by the new settlers meant only the toughest survived, but from tragedy they won success.

  TO A FAR COUNTRY

  BY MARINA OLIVER

  Chapter 1

  MAY 1807 THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND

  'Here ye are. She's a bonny lass,' the midwife said. 'I'll be askin' your man in now ye're both neat and tidy.'

  'Thank you, Eliza,' Flora said, her voice weary. She had been prepared for pain, and surprised that it was so bearable. She had never expected giving birth to be such hard work, or take so long, and she was exhausted.

  Eliza smiled. 'Never mind, next time it'll be a son, and then ye'll soon be catching me up,' she said cheerfully.

  Flora shuddered. Eliza had six brawny sons, aged from eight to twenty-two. She had no wish to live surrounded by such an abundance of vigorous masculinity. Of course she wanted sons, that was the problem. It went without saying a man wanted a son to follow him, but not so many of them.

  'And before ye know it, they're wanting to be off on their own, like my Andrew,' Eliza went on. 'Mr Jamie will be giving him old Stuart's croft, won't he? He said he'd think about it, and my Andrew's terrible keen to try out some of these new-fangled notions that his dad don't hold with.'

  'I can't speak for Jamie, Eliza,' Flora said. 'You know others are wanting it too, men older than Andrew. Good land is scarce in the glen.'

  'Well, I'm sure ye'll put in a word for Andrew. You've always been friends,' Eliza said confidently. 'He may be only two and twenty, but he's for ever reading about turnips and hardier sheep and new-fangled ploughs.' She went to the door and opened it, calling to someone in the other room, while Flora stared blankly at the baby thrust into her arms.

  She was sturdy-limbed, pink-cheeked, deliciously warm and soft, with a cap of red hair much brighter than her own auburn locks, and incredibly long, dark eyelashes. She was beautiful, but Flora felt nothing, no rush of overwhelming love such as she had expected to feel when her first baby arrived. And it had been an easy birth, Eliza said. She was an ungrateful wretch to feel this sense of disappointment, of weary resignation. Perhaps it was just exhaustion. But she'd been so sure it was a son.

  'Flora! Eliza says all's well. How are you, my sweet love?'

  The man who entered the room was eight years older than she was, a successful man before she'd ever met him. He was tall and dark, slender and with aristocratic features. He had an air of command, and men deferred instinctively to him. But he was as tough as any Highlander, could work alongside them in the fields, or tramp with them after deer, and not tire more quickly, even though he was not bred to crofting. She knew she was fortunate in her husband of just a year.

  She had fallen in love within a moment of setting eyes on him. It had been a wild, tempestuous craving, like nothing she'd ever felt before. He too had been visiting friends in the city, and they met at a concert her aunt had taken her to. Flora was lost the moment she looked into his silver-grey eyes. She trembled in dismay when she thought of how easily they could have missed one another, never met. At the time, and to her everlasting amazement, he had returned her love, and been willing to abandon his own to adopt her far less prosperous life in her beloved glen.

  She had not then known about Arabella, the English girl everyone had expected him to marry. Often, in secret, she wondered whether they had quarrelled, whether Jamie had turned to her too impulsively, and if he ever regretted it.

  Swallowing her frustration now, Flora lifted her gaze and forced herself to smile. She would love their baby. Jamie would see none of her doubts, hear none of her regrets.

  'Dearest Flora, I'm so proud of you!' he murmured, holding her gently as he kissed her.

  'Jamie! Aye, all's well,' she sighed. 'Here's your daughter. I'm sorry it's not a son.'

  Jamie stroked the child's soft cheeks, bent carefully over her as she lay in Flora's arms, and kissed her again. 'Don't fret, my love, we've plenty of time. We're still young enough to have a dozen sons.'

  Flora shut her eyes to conceal the dismay in them. Her pregnancy had been easy, so had the birth, but she could not relish the prospect of a dozen sons. And at nineteen there were many childbearing years ahead of her. She wanted more from life than endless pregnancies.

  'But I want you to myself for a while before then,' Jamie murmured softly, and kissed her closed eyelids. 'Here's a small gift for you,' he added, pressing a packet into her hand. 'Open it.'

  She unwrapped the parcel to find a jeweller's velvet-covered box. She opened it slowly and gasped, overwhelmed with astonishment and pleasure. Gently she picked out a pair of lustrous pearl earrings and held them to her cheek. 'Jamie! Oh, they're beautiful! They're much too good for me!'

  'They match your wedding necklace. I bought them then for just such an occasion, my love.'

  Flora clasped his hands tightly. She should not feel like this, with such a loving husband. Most husbands would have kept such a gift for the birth of a son. She would love this baby, she once more vowed silently.

  'What shall we call her?'

  Flora blinked. As she was so certain she was bearing a son she'd not so much as considered names for a girl.

  'We'll have to think of one,' she said, and suddenly yawned.

  Jamie was looking at what he could see of the tiny face, wrapped in a soft shawl. 'She's like you, dainty and lovely. I wonder if she'll have your eyes?'

  'All babies have blue eyes,' Flora told him. 'And they all have snub noses, too,' she added with a faint chuckle.

  'But she's got your dimples, and I hope she'll have your beauty.'

  Flora couldn't help smiling at his compliments. 'You always had a silver tongue!'

  'She looks like a rose, such soft skin, and pale pink cheeks, and that pursed little mouth like a bud just opening.'

  'Rose Lennox?' Flora tried it out doubtfully. 'It sounds good.'

  'Though I've never seen a rose w
ith the colour of her hair,' Jamie said, laughing. 'Eliza said she'll have a temper.'

  Flora roused herself. 'Eliza asked me about that croft,' she said, remembering. 'For Andrew. He's anxious to know.'

  'I know, Andrew spoke to me earlier. But old Stuart's not even in his grave yet.'

  Flora leaned back into the pillows, blinking back sudden tears. Old Stuart MacDougal, distant kin of her father, had been one of her earliest friends. When she was a child he had taught her to read and write, as he had done many of the glen's children. He was better than the dry, elderly Minister, Flora's father had said, who taught nothing of value to crofters, giving his pupils only dry, bigoted religious pamphlets as reading matter.

  Stuart had taken her for long walks, shown her secret places where she could watch the deer, or look at the eagles nesting in a clump of tall trees beyond the loch. From him she had learned how to find food and herbs, trap hares, fish in the loch, and treat injured people and animals. She had loved him dearly, listened to his tales of past battles, stories of the clans, and the time when, as no more than a boy, he'd followed the Prince on his last attempt to win his throne. Would she come to love this placid bundle, asleep now in her arms, the same way?

  She leaned over and lowered the baby into the cradle beside her. Perhaps it was natural. Maybe daughters could not provoke the same feelings of awe and delight and achievement as a son would have done. But Jamie was right. They would have sons who could help on the croft as they grew to manhood. Thank goodness she and Jamie had sufficient money not to have to worry. He had acquired his fortune before they met. There were plenty of families in the glen where the arrival of another mouth to feed was a matter for worry, not pleasure. No wonder the young men like Andrew wanted to rent their own land. She did not have those problems. They were secure and wonderfully happy. She had all she wanted, apart from a son, and one day they'd have that too.

  'I'll try to love you, little one,' she whispered, and twisted her lips into a determined smile as she lay back once more, her eyes closed.

  ***

  Rosamunde's name was chosen a week later to honour one of Flora's MacDougal aunts, the one married to a lawyer in Edinburgh, the one who had introduced her to Jamie. She was a quiet baby, sleeping most of the time, suckling contentedly, giving vent to rage only if her meals were delayed. She was two weeks old and Flora, not long risen from childbed, was thankful she was sleeping while she was busy wringing out some linen she had washed and spreading it over the bushes outside their croft.

  She turned round to find a tall young man surveying her, one hand on hip, a long-barrelled gun over his shoulder.

  'Andrew, good day to you. Was it Jamie you wanted to speak with?'

  He smiled, and she wondered fleetingly whether, if she didn't have Jamie, she might join all the other lassies in the neighbourhood, in this and the surrounding glens, hanging on his every word. Bold, handsome, self-confident, he was a couple of years older than she was, and she had once expected to marry him. Before her father died, before she went to Edinburgh and fell in love with Jamie, her father and his had suggested the possibility. Andrew was clever, he could have been a lawyer or doctor. In time he could have taken over the duties of tacksman, and she suspected he'd never forgiven her for denying him that. She had never felt completely at ease with him since, and he had kept out of her way. There were plenty of other girls. Andrew was well aware of his popularity with women, and sometimes, Flora thought, his smile was a little too knowing.

  'Is your man at home? I wanted to know what he's decided about the croft.'

  'He's further up towards the loch, I think. I don't know if he's decided yet.'

  At that moment the baby woke and clearly felt it was time to feed. She bawled lustily, in the cradle set outside in the weak spring sunshine, and Flora smiled as she went to pick her up.

  'A braw lassie,' Andrew said, and nodded as he swung away to follow the track further along the glen. Several hens, clucking in agitation, scattered before him. For a moment Flora watched him, striding out firmly, his kilt swinging. Tall, broad, energetic and intelligent, he would make a good farmer if his enthusiasm for experiments did not ruin him.

  The breeze was gentle, coming up the glen from the west. Flora lifted her head to sniff the sweet tang of new grass, and imagined she could detect the faintest hint of the distant sea, far away beyond where the glen widened into the coastal plain. She sat on the bench which faced the sun, her back against the rough stone wall of the croft, and slipped her gown down over her shoulder. The baby fastened onto her breast, gulped, came up for air while she coughed, and then settled down to the most important business of her life. Flora looked down at her. She willed herself to get over the disappointment of not having a son, and had made a determined effort to love Rosamunde. She thought she was succeeding, for the baby was so contented, soft and warm, and her very helplessness and dependence on Flora created a loving response.

  Jamie was absent. Marjorie, a crofter's wife from further down the glen, who had helped just for the last weeks of Flora's pregnancy, had returned to her own home the day before. Apart from the baby Flora was alone. She relished the moments of peace, the only sounds the calls of birds and the brook which tumbled over rocks a few yards in front of her.

  She glanced round at the mountains which reared either side of the narrow glen, the lower slopes where a few hardy black cattle grazed, and the rougher, rockier outcrops further up, where later in the year the heather would blaze bright purple. She blessed her good fortune that she lived in such a lovely spot. Not for her the smoke and bustle of a city. One visit to Edinburgh had been enough to convince her she was not fitted for life amongst crowds of people. Feeling hemmed in she had been tense and unhappy, stupidly afraid of being crushed. It had been a recurring nightmare ever since. She preferred the peace, the wide spaces, the quiet beauty of the Highlands. Whether it was the steep craggy rocks, the grassy bottoms of the glens, or the deep, secret lochs made no difference, she loved it all. Even when life was hard and the winter snows lay deep and seemingly for ever, she could look up at the surrounding peaks and feel safe within their protection. They had defeated most invaders over the centuries.

  Life was far harder for many of their neighbours, she knew. But everyone in the glen managed to grow their potatoes, kail and barley, feed their sheep and cattle, spin wool to make clothes and blankets. If they sometimes went hungry for a few weeks because the harvest had been poor, or the winter unduly long, they endured it cheerfully. Some of the sons had to leave when they married, for there was not always enough land to share with them, and the township farms could not always support another growing family. Many of the girls went into service in the towns. So far as Flora knew they went gladly, happy to see something of the wider world.

  She was putting Rosamunde back in her cradle when she heard the distant neigh of a horse. She glanced along the track, but no one was visible. Sounds carried a long way in the clear air, and it could well have been from their neighbouring farm, invisible round the curve of the lower slopes of the mountain. It was unlikely to be visitors, and the track only led further up into the mountains. It ended in less than a couple of miles, on the banks of a tiny loch. It was this loch that fed the stream and gave the whole glen sparkling, clear water.

  Flora began to prepare dinner. Jamie had snared a couple of rabbits, and they still had a few vegetables in the store. A hearty stew flavoured with the herbs which grew wild would be welcome at the end of the day, for the nights were still bitterly cold. And the skins, when cured, could be added to her store ready to make the new coat Jamie would need next winter. She had just swung the pot over the fire when she heard a shout nearby.

  'Flora! Where are you, lass?'

  Startled, she went outside. Singing softly to herself, and inside the thick walls of the croft she hadn't heard anyone arrive. It had been a long time since she had heard that voice.

  'Bruce Mackay!' she exclaimed, and was enveloped in a huge hug. His rough t
weed cloak tickled her face, and prevented her from seeing beyond him. 'What are you doing here?' she gasped when he released her.

  He was a giant of a man, craggy faced, with sandy hair going grey, and a redder beard above which jutted a beak of a nose, and deep set steel blue eyes. She remembered him as always smiling, but now the corners of his mouth were turned down, his eyes were bleak, and there were deep frown grooves on his forehead.

  He moved, and Flora saw the cart which had stopped a few feet away. A thin horse, ribs and hip bones prominent, drooped in the shafts. Two scrawny cows were tethered to the back. A boy, dark haired and thin, aged fourteen or fifteen, sprawled wearily against one of the wheels, his eyes closed, while a girl a year or so younger, sandy-haired like Bruce, perched high on top of the cart's load, looking anxiously towards her.

  Flora blinked, and looked more closely at the things on the cart. There was a chest, a rough-hewn table, a couple of benches, and on top, all held securely by ropes, a polished rocking chair. In between these items bundles were stuffed in every gap, others, with pots and kettles, spades and assorted ironware, were slung beneath the cart. She turned back to the man.

  'Cousin Bruce, what is this? And where is Cousin Margaret?'

  The girl on the cart burst into sobs, and Flora gathered her wits together. 'Come in, I'll brew some tea. And it must be Malcolm and Meg. It's been a long time since I saw you, you were no more than children then.'

  She bustled around, moving Rosamunde in her cradle to a far corner of the kitchen, then boiling water and warming the big teapot while they came into the kitchen behind her. They were huddled round her table, clutching mugs of tea, before Bruce began to explain.

  'You've not heard, then?'

  'Heard what?' Flora demanded. Whatever it was, it had to be a disaster, for her normally cheerful cousin looked grimmer than she had ever seen him. He was twenty years her senior, and someone she remembered from her childhood as full of hearty exuberance. Now he looked defeated.