To A Far Country

by Oliver, Marina

  'So what do we do?' she asked, hugging Jenny to her.

  He shrugged. 'The rents are due next week. If they are not paid, then I'm afraid you will have to leave your crofts.'

  'Leave? We've nowhere to go, there are twenty or more families in this glen alone!' Jamie told him angrily. 'Will you turn us out, women and children too, homeless?'

  'I will have to send men to ensure the crofts are vacant,' he replied, then rose to his feet and dusted his hands together.

  'Pilate!' Flora whispered. 'You don't care if we starve, if babies die, you're washing your hands.'

  Rosie, sensing the atmosphere, crept towards Jamie and clung to his legs, whimpering.

  McGregor tightened his lips. He glared at Flora. 'A week from today. Everyone in the glen. It must be cleared ready for the new tenant.'

  ***

  Chapter 4

  'They're not doing it!' Flora said fiercely. She was scrubbing the bare table with furious energy.

  'How can we stop them?' Jamie asked. 'You know the lairds have the power to do what they wish.'

  'It's not the lairds, it's that odious man, and other factors like him. I won't believe the lairds would treat their people in this way. Why, the clan's like a family! We're all kinsmen and women.'

  'Bruce's laird threw him out,' Jamie reminded her.

  'He – the Marquess, is English!'

  'He's not the only one, and most of them are Highlanders, as Scottish as you are, Flora, my love. We'll have to go in the end.'

  She took the pail of water and threw it out of the door. 'I know, deep down, but not without a fight, Jamie. We can't simply leave just because some strange man comes and gives us orders.'

  'He had the laird's letter of authority, and the proper Writs of Removal.'

  'Which I'd have torn up if I could! They've no right to turn us out.' She came and put her arms round his waist, and buried her face in his chest. 'Go and see the laird. Please, Jamie, go and ask him if it's true, if he does want us all off land we've farmed for hundreds of years.'

  Jamie sighed and stroked her hair. 'Sweetheart, it won't be of any use. Why should he listen to me?'

  She stamped her foot. 'If you don't try, how can you know if he'll listen or not? Or do you want me to go and find him in Edinburgh? At least I'd throw myself down on my knees and beg, if needs be. I'd not be too proud to do that for my people.'

  'You cannot travel there at the moment, and it's not fitting. Very well, I'll go, I'll do what I can. But tell everyone for me that they must be prepared to go, if I fail to change his mind.'

  He left early the following morning, riding their larger horse, not the pony. He went through the narrow pass at the top of the glen, where horses and men on foot could go, which shortened the ride to Edinburgh by many hours. The moment he was out of sight Flora harnessed the pony to the trap, took the little girls and went as fast as she could to Bruce's house. Meg was searching for eggs, and straightened her back when Flora called out to her.

  'Flora! Isn't it dreadful? We're being turned out of here too!'

  'Not if I can help it!' Flora replied. 'Meg, will you take care of Rosie and Jenny? I must try and organise the people to stop these wicked men.'

  Meg looked at her, wide-eyed. 'What will you do?'

  'I have a scheme, but I need to talk to some of the other women. I'll pay you for looking after the children.'

  Meg shook her head, but lifted the children down and took them into her small cottage. 'Come and have some lovely warm milk, I've been milking the goat,' she said, and they went happily.

  Flora shook the reins and drove on to the cottages by the kirk. There she soon collected a group of women who were, for the most part, standing outside their cottage doorways or beside the well, talking gloomily of the coming eviction.

  When she had a dozen or more round her, Flora stood up on the trap. 'Are we going to give in meekly?' she demanded. 'Do we let them throw us out as they threaten, or shall we try and stop them?'

  'We canna' do a thing to stop them,' one sighed, and some of the others nodded.

  'I'm willing to do what I can,' Betty, the recent bride, declared, her eyes flashing, and she found some support.

  Flora looked round and smiled. 'If there are a dozen or so of us, and I haven't yet asked those further up the glen, we can show them we're not to be treated like cattle, driven out when they choose. Listen carefully. This is what I plan to do.'

  An hour later, satisfied, she drove back, stopping at most of the cottages on her way. Various people came to her cottage during the next few days, and she was busy, talking, sending young lads with messages, arguing with those who felt she was acting wrongly. But on the whole the people of the glen supported her.

  Jamie arrived home, weary with hard, constant riding, and dispirited by lack of success, the day before McGregor was due to return.

  'You haven't started to pack!' he said in surprise, sinking down onto the bench and draining a tankard of ale. 'That was good. I needed it.'

  'How did it go?' Flora asked. 'Did you see the laird?'

  'He'd gone to London, and there was no one there who would assume any responsibility,' Jamie said, sighing. 'I didn't have time to follow, and from what your uncle said he'd been talking for weeks about the high rents he'd be able to charge when the glens were empty.'

  Flora took a deep breath. She was sure he'd disapprove of what she planned, but it was too late now. 'We're not going,' she announced.

  'Flora, we have to!'

  'Well,' she conceded, 'we might have to in the end, but not without a fight.'

  He took a long time to be convinced, but eventually sighed and said he didn't see how he could stop it. 'I'll join you, of course, but it won't serve, There'll be more grief. You're giving them hope that can't be justified.'

  ***

  Meg arrived the following morning before Flora had finished feeding the children.

  'Go on, I'll do that,' she said, her eyes gleaming. 'I wish I could be with you. I passed Jamie on my way here.'

  'He's gone to organise the men at the lowest township. Better for you to stay out of it,' Flora said briskly. 'Thanks, Meg.'

  She had harnessed the pony before rousing the children, and set off immediately. All the way along the glen men and women and older children were going her way, calling cheerful greetings. By the time Flora reached the gorge there was a crowd of people there.

  They cheered as she arrived. 'Here's the General! Give us our orders, lass!'

  She laughed. 'You know what we planned. The stones are ready on the top of the cliffs, we'll go up there. A dozen men can hold the gorge. But don't show yourselves before they're all within it.'

  'What if they've brought muskets?' one timid woman asked.

  'They're not expecting us to fight. We'll disarm them before they have time to shoot. We'll be at the top, hidden.'

  They dispersed, and an eerie silence fell on the glen. Flora kilted her skirts and, with the boys and the younger women, clambered up goat paths to the tops of the cliffs. A dozen men hid themselves in the bracken and heather near the entrance to the gorge, and they waited, silent and watchful.

  It was an hour before they saw a troop of men riding towards them. Flora counted swiftly. Good, just ten or eleven, a small enough number to deal with. To her relief they were armed with staves and dirks, not guns. Only the man riding at their head carried a musket. Though she searched their faces closely, McGregor was not with them. He, she thought scornfully, left the dirty work to others.

  'Are we to kill them?' a young boy whispered to Flora.

  'Of course not!' she said, horrified. 'We're not murderers.'

  'They might be, and we're at war with them,' he replied.

  Flora sighed inwardly. She would try her best to save the people her father and grandfather and many generations before that had looked after, but she suspected in her heart it could only be a delay. She could not allow them to see her doubts.

  'They'll fire the cottages further do
wn if they can't pass through here,' the boy persisted.

  'You're a bloodthirsty creature,' she said, hoping he was not right. 'All the people from lower down the glen have hidden their carts with as much as they can carry. They won't be found, and there's little enough for the factor and his men to attack there.'

  The small troop halted near the kirk, looking round at the unusual emptiness. Flora hoped they might conclude everyone had already gone. A couple dismounted and went across to look inside a few cottages. They'd find all the goods which could be shifted had been removed. She was beginning to have doubts. Was it a good idea to defy the laird? In the heat of her anger it had seemed the only thing to do, but if anyone were hurt, or, even worse, killed, she'd blame herself for the rest of her life. Without her urging they would never have contemplated resisting.

  The men conferred. One of them went to hammer on the door of the manse, but there was no answer. The Minister, Flora knew, had departed the day after McGregor's visit. He had no desire to stand with his flock against the might of the laird. And so far as Flora knew no one had told him of their plan, so he could not have betrayed them.

  The men remounted and came on. Flora held her breath. Would it work?

  They dropped to single file to pass through the gorge, and Flora signalled to the women behind her. Silently they wriggled forward to the edges of the cliffs and looked down. As the last of the riders entered the narrow track Flora saw men creeping from behind them to cut off their retreat.

  Then noise erupted, sudden and shocking after the intense silence when even the birds had been dumb. One of the crofters blew a piercing blast on an ancient trumpet he'd acquired many years ago, and there was a rumbling sound, startled shouts and curses, and the terrified neighing of frightened horses.

  Flora glanced both ways. Boulders, made ready the day before, had been rolled across the path at both ends of the gorge, making it impossible for horses to get past. Men could be seen crouching behind them, sheltered but ready to defend the exits. She took a deep breath and stood up on an outcrop of rock where she could be seen from below.

  'Both ends of the gorge are blocked,' she shouted, willing her voice not to tremble. 'If you promise to leave us in peace, you can go. If not we will keep you there.'

  The leader, a huge man with shaggy hair, looked up towards her, and sneered. 'Go home to your cooking, wench!' he called. 'If you don't it'll be the worse for you.'

  'We are not leaving our homes. And you can't leave without our help.'

  The men were huddled together, looking round at the steep rocky cliffs. A couple dismounted and began to search for a track, but Flora knew there was nothing which would give them sufficient hold. Just to make sure they understood, though, she waved to Betty, and the girl tossed a few stones down towards the men. Her aim was good, one stone bounced off a shoulder, another off the other man's bonnet.

  They drew back, cursing, and the other men hurriedly dismounted, taking shelter on the far sides of their horses. One of the women on the cliffs opposite laughed, and tossed down a few pebbles. One hit a horse which reared, dragging its unwary rider, still clutching the reins, to the very edge of the stream where he lost his balance and toppled into the fast-flowing water.

  Flora and the others watched, amused, as his companions rescued him. They hauled him onto the bank, all the while casting wary looks up at the clifftops. He began to strip off his soaking kilt, then, hearing the women above him laugh, changed his mind, ineffectively trying to dry his hair and legs with a corner of his plaid.

  The day passed slowly. The watchers grew bored, the troop of men increasingly frustrated as they accepted their helplessness. An attempt to storm one of the barriers of boulders was repelled, and when the leader of the troop took aim with his musket and fired at a bonnet which had become visible beyond one of the boulders he received such a hail of stones and pebbles from above that he crawled swiftly beneath a scrubby bush for protection.

  As dusk fell Jamie climbed onto the boulders blocking the way out, to the foot of the glen.

  'We will allow you to go on one condition,' he called to their leader, still cowering beneath the bushes. 'We want time to talk to the laird, to reach some compromise. Our messenger is riding for London now. If you'll leave us in peace until he returns you may go.'

  They refused at first, but as it grew dark and cold, eventually gave way. Jamie and his helpers rolled away the boulders, and the bedraggled, hungry horsemen rode away.

  'Ye'll regret this,' the one who'd fallen in the stream shouted. 'We'll be back, never fear.'

  ***

  The sad procession grew longer. Flora had not ceased blaming herself for the past three days. They'd posted men to watch that first night, but when a week passed and no one came to molest them, the watchers grew careless. One had slept on watch. That morning the people awoke to find a large troop of men outside their doors. They were tough-looking thugs, ready with knives, cudgels and long staffs to ensure that every last person dwelling in the glen left it. Many were armed with bayonets and muskets, and this time resistance was useless.

  Now a dozen of the men sent by McGregor were behind them. Others were searching the houses further down, harrying the reluctant tenants to leave.

  Flora and the children rode in the trap, pulled by their own pony, while Jamie, in the lead, drove the cart pulled by the horse he used for ploughing. She was exhausted from the fight, and the unremitting hard work of the past two days, all they'd been allowed to pack their possessions. She blamed herself bitterly, aghast at the horror of it, and wondered whether it would have been better if she hadn't tried to fight. She sat numbly, not wanting to think of what lay ahead.

  They had been the first to start the trek, their croft being the highest in the glen, but as they wended their slow way down they were joined by others. Most had carts of some kind, piled high with whatever they had managed to save from their homes. Cattle and sheep, and a few goats were being herded along, lowing and bleating in bewilderment. Dogs, wildly excited, raced round barking and snapping at the other animals, making controlling them even more difficult. Children, heavily pregnant women, and those too old or infirm to walk rode on some of the carts, and Flora took as many as she could squeeze into her trap.

  She was dazed with regret. Even now, some of the younger, hotter headed men had wanted to fight, to barricade themselves into their homes, but in the end they had accepted they stood no chance against their enemies, with bayonets and guns. It was more urgent to save what they could, and hope to find the means to make a living elsewhere.

  Jamie had persuaded them to work together, and they saw the sense of letting a few men and some of the boys herd all the animals, instead of each family trying to control their own beasts. They worked as teams moving the heavier furniture, the chests of meal, the looms, and fixing them securely onto the carts. Families with extra carts or horses lent them to those without. Old men too feeble to lift loads constructed crates for the fowls, and these were perched on top of the rest. Their cottages were stone, unlike the one Bruce had left, so there were no timbers to remove. This, Flora thought, had its advantages. They could carry away more of their personal goods, and food enough for the journey.

  A couple of men evaded McGregor's troop and spent a day catching hares and rabbits, and brought two fine stags down from the mountains during the hours of darkness. Butchered immediately and shared amongst the families, they would provide convenient meat for a few days, in addition to whatever they could snare or get by fishing as they went. Most of the families had decided to go to Glasgow. They were wary of the Highlands. News had come of other lairds driving off their people.

  'They don't treat us as their children, as kinsfolk any more,' one of the oldest women said sadly. 'Not like in the old days. We wouldn't be safe anywhere.'

  Eliza and her family had dropped back, several more families falling in behind Flora and Jamie. She was grateful. It still felt awkward to be speaking to them again, though sheer necessity co
mpelled them to cooperate. They had not joined her rebellion, and Andrew still ignored her, apart from throwing her a sneering glance, and she felt she deserved that. She had failed everyone.

  Ahead the track was blocked by a laden cart and a group of gesticulating women, arguing fiercely with two of McGregor's men. Jamie halted, tethered his horse to a post outside the cottage, and went forward.

  'What is it?'

  One of the women grasped his arm. 'Tell them they canna' force old Donald out! He's fast to his bed! The man's near a hundred, an' hasn't walked for gone two year!'

  'His daughter said she'd persuade him, and there's room on that cart you have,' Jamie said.

  'There's a good mattress ready for him, the stubborn old fool,' she said, fighting back tears.

  'Can't some of the men carry him out, whether he will or no?'

  Another of the women burst into tears. 'Dad said he'd go, but now he won't budge,' she wailed. 'He's got hold of a gun, and threatened to shoot me if I tried to force him! He's lost his wits!'

  One of McGregor's men laughed suddenly. He jerked his head to his companions and they moved aside, whispering together, then separated. Flora watched apprehensively. From her slightly higher perch, a little way back, she could see them as they went behind the cottage. Suddenly she realised what they were doing.

  'No!' she shouted, and flung the reins to one of the other women in the trap. She scrambled over the side and ran towards the men, Jamie hurriedly following her.

  She was halted by one of them thrusting a bundle of blazing twigs towards her.

  'You'll be hurt too,' he threatened. 'We'll soon drive the old fool out, or leave him to burn in his bed.'

  'Please! Let my husband speak to him!'

  'No more delay, woman. We know all your tricks.'

  Flora clung to his arm, but he threw her off and she stumbled against the stone walls. Before she could recover he thrust the torch into the roof of the byre. This was not of stone, but built onto the end of the cottage with a lattice of twisted branches, peat-covered and thatched with heather. It was tinder-dry and flared instantly, the crackling loud and ominous. With a grin at Flora the man went and thrust his torch through the one small window, and she heard a frightened bellow from inside.