As the maiden Ginevra grew, her hair gradually changed from black to the bright red of MacIain’s himself, while her eyes lightened. The deep color which at first resembled dusk came to reflect the bright blue of midday, eventually transforming into the pale blue of a spring dawn.
Her personality fit both wild hair and pale eyes. A smile usually spread over her lips, but the expression was distant, somehow disconnected from those around her—a smile that came to be accepted as the grin of unknowing simplemindedness. When spoken to, she looked beyond, almost through, whoever addressed her, giving no sign that she heard or that the words communicated meaning to her brain. Her face remained as devoid of expression as her eyes were full of strange light, almost an inner luminescence.
Yet by actions and other signs of expression, it was clear her ears functioned properly, that sound, even meaning, registered something within her. As much as possible for one so inexplicably severed from the world of speech, she seemed capable of most functions of normality. Even the wisest among the villagers, however, could not tell exactly what she made of what went on around her, or what odd twistings occurred behind Ginevra’s eyes and ears after words and sounds and sights entered her brain. She absorbed it, that much was clear. But she never gave faintest clue what lay inside.
No one denied that Ginevra was odd in many ways—fixing upon some object and staring at it unmoving for an hour . . . getting down on all fours and imitating a dog, not merely for a few moments but perhaps for days. She took occasionally to wandering the hills alone, at night during the summer months, afraid of nothing. And always was present the blank stare of nonexpression. For any indication otherwise, she might have been stone deaf.
Attempts were made to send her to the small school which had recently been established. But the other children treated her cruelly. Ginevra never gave indication whether the goings-on made the slightest sense to her. She would get up from her seat and wander outside and perhaps not be seen for the rest of the day. No discipline, no tongue-lashing, no slap across wrist or any other portion of her anatomy was capable of producing anything but blank stare or sweet smile. As to a change in her peculiar mannerisms, Ginevra was not governed by any rule of conduct or behavior that anyone could gain a clue toward understanding.
One night after the most merciless whipping had produced only a smile in return, even as tears flowed from the innocent eyes, the schoolmaster had been so smitten with guilt over what he had done that he vowed never to touch her again. However odd her behavior, he realized he would never change it by force.
Whether she could read, not even her mother knew. She stared at words on a page with the familiar blank expression that conveyed no hint what she might be thinking.
Even old Chief Alasdair, whose unruly mane, now grown white, had once matched hers in hue, confessed he had never seen the like. Bard Ranald MacDonald of the Shield, poet and warrior of more ancient years even than Betsy MacDougall, found himself both charmed and puzzled. Plucking the strings of his small Celtic harp and staring deep into her eyes, softly the bard of Achtriachtan crooned a melancholy lament to the child whose depths even he could not probe.
Wee Ginevra oor love, bairn wi’ the chieftain’s mane,
What du ye think, what du ye ken?
We canna git inside ye, lass—tell us gien ye can.
We dinna hear what ye’re thinkin,’ lass—but fain wad we ken. . . .
Wha are ye, lass? Tell us gien ye can.
Wha are ye, bairn? What are yer thouchts aboot?
We luik . . . we luik but canna see.
We gaze into yer eyes—only blue looks oot.
We see only the twinkle o’ stars, the pale o’ dawn . . .
A vast empty sky. Tell us gien ye can.
O, lass, whaur hae ye come frae? Whaur are ye bound?
What is it that hides deep in yer hert?
Wha are ye, lass? To say, are ye afeart?
What du ye think, what du ye ken?
Fain wad we ken. Tell us gien ye can.2
The haunting melody in the ancient crackly voice brought tears to the mother’s eyes. But from Ginevra herself it elicited but the beginnings of the only sounds anyone ever heard from her mouth—a faint giggle of delight.
The general consensus in the village concerning Ginevra MacIain, great-niece of the chief, was that “she wasna all there.”
Four
Ginevra was fifteen when she first met young Brochan Cawdor, of a small sept of Clan Campbell who dwelt near Black Mount on the slopes of Meall a’ Bhuiridh at the edge of Rannoch Moor.
She had left the village that morning, wandering upriver about a mile, when the conical hill known as Signal Hill struck her fancy. Immediately she ran toward it, intent to climb the few hundred feet to its peak, stand upon the jagged stone that crowned the hill, and feast her eyes upon the entire glen.
A crowd of four or five boys were just then returning from a morning’s fishing in Loch Achtriachtan. If she saw them, she gave their presence no more heed than she did that of any human being.
But they saw her.
“Look, it’s the idiot Ginevra!” cried one.
They were after her in a flash.
At first the troublemakers were no match for the girl’s speed. She was halfway to the top before they reached the hill’s lower slopes. But Ginevra’s legs were shorter than theirs, and the boys brought to their aid the added resource of sadistic design to sustain their energy.
Ginevra reached the summit as the first two overtook her. She collapsed in a heap at the foot of the stone, breathing heavily. They approached, as exhausted as she, and she gazed up at them with the mysterious smile still on her face.
“Don’t smile that way at me!” said the oldest of the boys. He was their obvious ringleader and was by now irritated all the more that it had taken such an effort to catch a mere girl. A box on her ear followed.
She looked up at him with as much expression as she ever displayed, which was a mingling of confusion and pity. She knew him from the neighboring village, but had no idea why he would treat her so. Slowly the smile faded from her face. Catching her breath, she rose to go.
The others by now had gained the summit. Following their leader’s mischievous lead, they were not about to lose out on their share of the fun.
“Say something, Ginevra,” said one, following after her as she started down the hill.
“What’s the matter,” taunted another, “cat got yer tongue?”
The others laughed and now scrambled to surround her, preventing her descent.
One of the bolder of the younger boys approached closer and slapped at her face. Ginevra turned away confused, bewildered.
“Be careful,” cried the youngest, who hung back nervously. “She’ll put a curse on ye!”
“She’s just an idiot, Ruadh,” the other replied. “She’ll not be puttin’ a curse on anyone.”
“The old witch says she’s got the second sicht.”
From somewhere on the summit, though no one had seen him approach from the other side of Signal Rock, an elderly man hurried toward them in a feeble run.
“Get away, leave her be, ye nickums!” he cried, giving the two closest a few sharp raps aside the legs with his walking stick.
“What’s it to ye, old man!” said the oldest boy, making a few swipes at the stick and trying to grab it from the man’s hand.
“Protecting the lass from the cowardly likes o’ you, that’s what it is t’ me.”
“Who are ye callin’ a coward?” said the boy with imagined courage, spurred on by the knowledge that the others were watching. But behind him their support was quickly vanishing. The youngest, the one named Ruadh, had already turned and bolted back down the way they had come. He feared for his own safety if word of the incident reached his home, for his father was John MacIain, and he himself was grandson to the chief and cousin to the recipient of their torment.
“It’s naethin’ but a coward who hurts an innocent!” returned t
he man, giving the oldest boy another deft whack with his cane, this time on the side of the head. The sound of the crack against the thick skull of the troublemaker, followed by the sharp cry of pain from his mouth, was enough to send the remainder of his companions scurrying off after Ruadh Og. The next moment their leader turned and sprinted after them down Signal Hill, shouting meaningless threats behind him.
Her rescuer turned to Ginevra. She stood staring, her eyes more expressive than usual, though it would have been difficult to say what exactly was the expression they contained.
The man approached and laid a tender hand on the head from which red flowed in all directions.
“Dinna pay the nickums mind,” he said as he nodded approvingly down. “Ye’ve got the spirit o’ the Highlands in ye, lass. I dinna doobt that the good Lord smiles when he looks doon upon ye. Dinna forget it no matter what men may say.”
Ginevra smiled up at him. But it was a sad smile, and she could not hold it for many seconds.
She turned and ran across the top of the hill, continuing down the opposite side from which she had made her ascent.
Five
Ginevra ran and ran, reaching the foot of the hill and continuing eastward up the pass along the lower slopes of the Three Sisters overlooking the eastern end of the glen from the south. Steadily the ground rose beneath her feet. Within an hour, walking, climbing, running, stopping every so often for a brief rest, she had covered four or more miles. By now she was far from human habitation, on the northern slopes of Stob Dubh.
After leaving the old man on Signal Hill, uncharacteristic tears rose in her eyes. Running herself to near exhaustion for an hour was not sufficient to stop them. Why she wanted to quell them, Ginevra did not know. She could only tell that when tears came, other strange sensations accompanied them that were confusing and unpleasant, lumps in her throat and aches in her stomach and questions without answers.
Why did the children of the village call her names and throw sticks and rocks at her? Why did the old people try to get her to make noises with her mouth when she had no interest in doing so? She had no need to speak. Hers was a world of feelings, not of words.
But now strange new feelings were coming into her. Unknown and fearsome changes had begun in her body. She felt longings she could not express, happinesses that made her cry, sadnesses that made her quiet. When she looked at some of the older boys of the glen—the few who were kind to her—they looked different to her eyes than they had looked before. Sometimes she stared at them, curiously drawn, but did not know why.
This was not the first time tears had risen in her eyes that she could not account for. But never had they lasted so long. Never had she been so unable to make them go away.
She paused to rest on an outcropping of stone and gazed through brimming eyes at the rocky world around her. She was at home here, for the hills were silent as her own soul. The world of men and women was a noisy babbling world. She was a stranger in it. She could find no corner of stillness in the world of men to offer peace. Even in her own home, where she was comfortable and where she knew she was loved—even there no quiet existed that was like the quiet inside her. Even the silences of others were noisy silences.
Here on the hushed slopes, beneath the quiet sky, she was more content than anywhere. The trickling, splashing, tumbling brooks and streams made the kind of music that resonated with the sounds in her heart. The water needed no words to speak, to sing, to tell the world of its travels and adventures and dreams. Why should she need words? Why could not her heart speak like the water spoke, or with the silent meaning of the clouds drifting overhead?
The spirit of the high places was a spirit of calm, of aloneness without loneliness, of solitude and contented seclusion. That same spirit dwelt within her.
Ginevra leapt up from her craggy resting place. Again she ran, yet farther up the glen, up the hill and over a path which in a fateful winter not many years hence would save her life.
Where she ran she did not know. Gradually known landmarks faded behind her. She found herself in a region of the mountains unfamiliar to eyes and feet.
She arrived at length upon a high precipice. She found herself standing at the edge of a grassless boulder overlooking a watery cataract that plunged far below her. She had come to the River Etive, though she did not know its name.
She stood beholding the sight with wonder. But a few moments she stood. Then with sudden abandon she retreated a few paces, turned, and tore off down the slope. A vague notion had arisen within her that if her entire body was wet, the wetness of the tears would go away. She reached a lower rock and without hesitation flew with the grace of an eagle out in the air toward the deep pool of green she had spied from above.
A second of silence followed, then a resounding splash heard by none. Two or three seconds later, Ginevra’s head burst out of the pool, cheeks flushed and radiant. The tears were indeed gone. She was bathed from head to foot in the tears shed by the final remnants of the mountain snows.
Her heart pounded, for the pool was icy cold, but new joy swelled within her as well as she climbed from the water on the opposite side and continued on her way.
It was high summer and warm. Ginevra’s dress was dry within an hour. When the sun began at last to sink toward the mountains at her back, she did not know where she was. But Ginevra was not afraid. Every hill for miles was her home, whether she had walked their slopes and byways previously or was acquainting herself with them for the first time.
Six
The lad from Black Mount on the edge of Rannoch Moor was fond of stalking the stag and the hare through the wilds of Meall a’ Bhuiridh and Aonach Mor. It was desolate country, dangerous and uninhabitable five or six months of the year, but lonely and inviting for one of Brochan Cawdor’s disposition.
He loved to hunt. If he could not find fox, hare, stag or wild boar, one of the ten thousand Highland rabbits that scampered about numerous as insects would do. As he tracked the hills, he dreamed of the day he would ride with the men of his clan into battle against the Danes or the English.
Young Brochan was well acquainted with stories of the Viking invasion of his land centuries before. He knew the legendary accounts of Flodden, and especially the Battle of Sauchieburn, where his ancestor Colin Campbell, first earl of Argyll and chief of Clan Campbell, had risen to prominence, after which the clan’s power in Argyll increased greatly. All these stories he had heard from his childhood. They had captivated and filled his brain with romantic fancies of battlefield heroism and images of the glory that one day would rest upon his own shoulders.
At sixteen, with plentiful golden hair and face just beginning to chisel into a man’s, his lanky frame was starting to bulge with the muscles of a future soldier. Yet Brochan Cawdor was still too young to ponder the fact that most of the fighting done by the Scots these days was not against invading foreign hordes, but amongst themselves. Well might it be said of his countrymen, “They spend all their time in wars, and when there is no war they fight one another.”
The earl’s chief man in the region, Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, was Brochan’s own great uncle, though in a distant fashion, the intricacies of which he could not trace. That Campbell was considered by many a drunkard who was at the point of financial ruin made the thought of riding behind him into battle none the less romantic in the boy’s fancies.
Lost in dreams of adventure, all at once the grayish brown of a rabbit darted like a blur across his path.
The next instant his bow was cocked, a razor-edged arrow strung and ready.
Brochan crept toward the heather thicket into which the animal had disappeared. Carefully the young warrior drew back the wooden shaft and took aim.
Suddenly from behind a rock in front of the thicket sprang a figure. It leapt straight into his line of sight, waving arms and dancing about in wild, frenetic display.
It was a girl! A foolish, stupid girl!
Startled out of his wits, the lad’s finger twitched. Th
e arrow loosed and whizzed past her, missing the frantic red head by about three feet. The shaft ricocheted off several rocks and slid harmlessly to a stop twenty or thirty yards beyond.
The rabbit scampered away to safety. The hunter lowered his bow in exasperation and anger, mingled with terror for what he had almost done.
“What did ye du that fer, ye goose?” he cried, running forward. “I might hae killed ye!”
No reply came. The girl relaxed her momentary jig, stood still, and stared at him. He returned the peculiar gaze, not knowing what to make of seeing one so young this far from any habitation or village.
“Whaur are ye frae?” he said after a second or two.
Still she stood staring. His bare, tan, rippling chest was one of the grandest sights the eyes of her dawning womanhood had ever beheld.
“I asked ye whaur ye’re frae,” he repeated, beginning to lose his patience. “What are ye, deef?”
Now finally did Ginevra answer. A high-pitched musical giggle met Brochan’s ears. How could he continue angry with a sound so delightful! He did not exactly smile, but his expression softened. He shuffled back and forth awkwardly on his feet.
“Dinna ye ken I might hae shot ye, lass?” he said, now speaking to her as a child. “An’ ye made me miss the cratur.”
Ginevra’s face fell, but she could not maintain the sad expression for long. Once again the smile broke out across her lips, spreading up into her eyes.
“Why du ye keep smilin’ in sic a way?” he asked.
Again came the giggle from the dainty mouth.
“Canna ye du naethin’ but smile an’ laugh?”
Another laugh, and a shake of the head.
“What’s yer name, then?”
No answer followed.
“Whaur are ye frae?” he now repeated.
Still keeping her eyes fixed intently upon her questioner, Ginevra threw her arm back behind her in the general direction of Glencoe. Brochan Cawdor could have no way of knowing that he was quickly becoming the recipient of more communication from Ginevra MacIain than she had ever given to anyone alive.
Legend of the Celtic Stone Page 7
