Legend of the Celtic Stone

by Michael Phillips

Eight

  Duncan did not seem surprised to see Andrew, nor did he remark on receiving a second visit this quickly after the first. He greeted Andrew warmly and led him inside. Soon the water was in the iron pot and Duncan was stoking the fire.

  As the old man blew and coaxed the peat flames to warmth, Andrew made his way around the room, taking in objects, textures, and memories of the place, almost as if he had never seen them before, though they had been familiar to him since childhood. He beheld everything with a full and quiet heart, noting especially the single bookshelf with a sensation not unlike reverence.

  “Congratulations t’ ye, lad,” said Duncan, bringing Andrew back to the present. “Ye’ll be back in Parliament again. The people are fortunate t’ have ye t’ speak their mind. But ’tis a heavy responsibility, I’m thinkn’.”

  “Especially with things like ever-expanding home rule to consider,” replied Andrew.

  “For Scotland, ye’re meanin’?”

  “It’s about as hot a political potato as there is. The future of the UK is at stake.”

  Duncan nodded thoughtfully, taking in the statement with keener interest than he revealed. He asked Andrew several more probing questions concerning his current activities. The conversation continued for several minutes, then subsided briefly.

  “The best things always take time, laddie,” added Duncan, more seriously now and with the reflective tone Andrew recognized from his boyhood.

  “You mean things like Scottish independence?”

  “Perhaps. If it happens, ’twill indeed have been a long time comin’. ’Tis like the Lord’s work in our lives as well—slow and steady, and often unseen.”

  “The Lord’s . . . work in our lives?” repeated Andrew.

  “Ay.”

  “How does he work in our lives?” asked Andrew, surprised at his own question. It was not something he had considered before this moment.

  “’Tis different fer every man an’ woman on earth,” answered Duncan. “The Lord’s got something he wants t’ du in every one, but each has t’ discover it fer himself.”

  “How does one know what that something is?”

  “Ye maun ask him, an’ then give him time, as I was sayin,’ t’ show ye.”

  “Does he show everyone?”

  “Everyone that wants t’ be shown, an’ that patiently listens fer the Voice when it comes. The moment comes t’ all when he’ll speak. ’Tis the moment o’ truth, the moment o’ decision. Then is the time when ye’ve got t’ decide whether ye want that work within ye that the Lord’s been waitin’ t’ du.”

  “You say, when that time comes, it’s a moment of decision?”

  “Ay. Jist as the Lord’s waitin’ till the right time t’ hear a man or woman say yes t’ him, he yet gives every one the right t’ say no. Though he’s calling oot t’ us in a thousand ways, tellin’ us he loves us and that we can trust him, he yet leaves oor response t’ that love in oor own hands.”

  Nine

  A long pause followed, during which Andrew contemplated the old Scotsman’s words.

  “The heather an’ the peat’s the slowest growin’ o’ nearly all things in makin’ the heat they give,” Duncan resumed as if continuing the previous track of conversation. “Peat’s one o’ the ancient wonders o’ life, laddie. ’Tis one o’ the mysteries the Creator put in the good earth he gave us.”

  He paused again briefly, a faraway look crossing his face momentarily. “Du ye recollect me tellin’ ye aboot what the colors o’ the heather put me in the mind o’?” he asked after a moment.

  “No . . . no, I don’t think I do,” replied Andrew.

  Duncan was silent, and another pause in the conversation ensued.

  Andrew glanced up and waited. But the old man did not resume the conversation in that direction, and his visitor did not feel like pressing.

  “’Tis one o’ the reminders o’ the auld times,” Duncan went on at length. “The auld men an’ women wha spoke the Gaelic tongue—’twas peat that kept ’em alive, laddie . . . the heather abune, the peat belaw . . . an’ the hue o’ its blossom tells the story only a few eyes can see.”

  The cryptic words from the old Scotsman sent Andrew into a renewal of his pensive mood. He sat staring into the fireplace, where heat now emitted in earnest from the hot-glowing sides and corners of the black peat bricks. Their legendary warmth was not merely physical, but emotional and cultural as well, symbolizing a heritage now kept alive only by a very few, like Duncan MacRanald. He was one who had not allowed the flow of modernity to rob from his sight the capacity to look back . . . and remember.

  “But what did you mean before,” said Andrew, “when you said the tale about the maiden of Glencoe would tell me what makes a Scot a Scot, that at Glencoe one discovers the essence of Scotland?”

  “What makes a Scot who he is, is the spirit of the Highlands, laddie. ’Tis what the maiden’s story is aboot, an’ the wind upon the moors sings her faint lament.”

  “But what makes the spirit of Scotland so unique?”

  “T’ answer that, laddie, I’d have t’ tell ye the whole history o’ our land . . . an’ I doobt ye hae time fer that!” he added laughing. “The good book o’ Scripture tells the Hebrew tale o’ salvation, an’ ye ken hoo long that story is! But the like tale o’ Scotland’s liberty is still one that’s in the process o’ being lived oot. An’ ’tis one that’s not widely known in the world. But ’tis a tale that will soon come t’ light, I’m thinkn’.”

  “Well,” laughed Andrew, “however long it may be, I’ll make time.”

  “’Tis oor history that makes the land get into the bones o’ oor people, an’ makes it so that the Scots canna rest till their land’s their own again. The very stones cry oot fer it, like the stones o’ Glencoe’s still hae the blood o’ the curse upon them.”

  “You make it sound like the Stone of Scone, that cries out when touched by the king.”

  “Ay,” nodded Duncan. “The stones o’ the Highlands are all one. They all cry oot for freedom.”

  A lengthy silence intervened. This time both men were, as of one accord, brought back to the present by the awareness that a vigorous steam and gentle boil was rising from the water in the cast-iron kettle hanging above the fire. Even without a microwave, the contents were by now well capable of producing a piping hot pot of tea. Duncan rose, swung the sweep out from the fire, removed the kettle from its hook by means of a thickly padded hand-mitt, and carried it to the counter beside his sink. He poured out the steaming liquid over the tea, which had been waiting in readiness in the adjacent teapot, then refilled the kettle with cold water and replaced it at the fire to begin the process once again should more tea be wanted.

  Within five minutes Duncan had again taken his seat, a tray of tea makings and a plate of oatcakes sitting on the low rough table between the two men’s chairs. Each poured out a cup to their liking, and both were soon sipping and munching contentedly.

  “You know,” remarked Andrew, “being here twice in such a short time brings so many pleasant memories to mind from my boyhood.”

  “Ye were here mony a’ time, laddie.”

  “It’s funny how time gets away, how you overlook your past for such long periods. Then something will happen that will remind you. And suddenly you realize you’ve lost touch with something important—something valuable. Do you know what I’m saying, Duncan?”

  Duncan nodded. He had not forgotten. As the Hebrew story was always with him, so was that of his own land. And he felt that its climax was approaching. He dared hope his people’s dreams would come to fruition in his own lifetime.

  Andrew pondered again for a moment. The next words out of his mouth were in a different direction.

  “Tell me, Duncan,” he said, “you’re a Scotsman—what do you think of the theft of the Stone?”

  “There’s mony a legend aboot its origins,” answered Duncan cryptically.

  “What about Scottish independence?” persisted Andrew. “Do you th
ink that’s where all these changes will lead?”

  Duncan smiled. Though the politics of Andrew’s situation were new, the question was far older than either man’s years.

  “The answer t’ that one hings by the string o’ self-knowledge,” he replied at length, answering Andrew’s question in the veiled manner which was often his custom. “Liberty must always come in the end. The question is one o’ hoo, when, an’ through whom.”

  The young politician was oblivious to the older man’s deeper meaning.

  “But what about the political implications to the union, to the kingdom itself?” he asked.

  “I canna say as I hae an opinion aboot it, laddie. But I think ’tis a matter o’ a man kennin’ his roots, o’ kennin’ whaur ye cam frae . . . o’ kennin’ what it means t’ be a Scot. That’s the end trowth o’ the matter—kennin’ who ye be . . . and what’s a Scot.”

  A knowing expression overspread his face while a happy twinkle played in his prophetic eyes as they stared into the fire. It was clear he cherished more opinion in the matter than he was willing to divulge. In the very asking of the young man’s question was being fulfilled the old man’s lifelong desire that the heir of the Trentham name and the Derwenthwaite estate would discover the roots and the past that bound them together. It was a very personal desire, for Andrew was heir of the same legacy which had brought Duncan’s own people down across the border with Lady Fayth Gordon so many generations ago.

  Gradually the conversation flowed into other paths and channels.

  Ten

  The fire in the cottage burned low.

  The two men—the one with his life before him, the other with his behind—stared into its fading embers with wide eyes and thoughtful gazes.

  “You used to tell me so many old stories,” sighed Andrew at length, pulling his eyes from the red-orange embers and glancing over at Duncan. “I’m sorry to say that I’ve forgotten probably three-quarters of them.”

  “No all o’ them, I haup.”

  “No, not all. But time blurs the memory.”

  “There’s times’ for tellin,’ an’ times for remembern’.”

  Andrew smiled.

  “Then this must be the latter for me.”

  “Why du ye say that, laddie?”

  “Being here again, memories begin to come back—tales you used to tell me, things you would show me when I’d go out with you over the moors when you were tending your sheep—all kinds of little details and bits and pictures, almost like a film from out of my younger years.”

  Andrew paused and smiled in fond reminiscence.

  “When I was home a couple weeks ago,” he went on, “I was out walking up to the top of the Crag. I looked out across the Solway and saw the Galloway hills of your homeland. Then I smelled the peat from your fire. That’s when I realized I needed to come visit you, and I came straight here. Now here I am again.”

  Duncan pondered the younger man’s words.

  “’Tis yer land jist as it’s mine,” he said after a moment.

  At first Andrew did not seem to hear. After ten or fifteen seconds, all at once the words registered with a jolt in his brain.

  “What was that you said?” he asked abruptly, turning toward MacRanald.

  “That it’s yer land jist as much as ’tis my ain.”

  “My land!” repeated Andrew. “What do you mean? I’m no Scot.”

  “Ay, ye are, laddie.”

  “To tell you the truth—and I hope you won’t take this the wrong way—I always sort of laughed the notion off,” said Andrew with a thoughtful smile. “I suppose I assumed that whatever links there were in that direction had grown so diluted as to be negligible.”

  “Hardly that, laddie. Once the Scots blood flows, ’tis there t’ stay. Whaur else du ye think the name Gordon came frae but the hills o’ the north? Ye aye got more Scot’s blood in ye than ye may realize.”

  Unconsciously Andrew rose and began wandering aimlessly about the cottage.

  “A Scot, you say?” he murmured.

  “Ay.”

  His steps came to rest after a few moments in front of the bookshelf he had noticed earlier.

  “I . . . the thought had never . . . such a thing didn’t strike me in exactly that way,” said Andrew, in an even more subdued tone. “I suppose I have always been aware that there is Scottish blood in our line. The same could no doubt be said of three-quarters of the people in England. But it never occurred to me to actually call myself a Scot.”

  Even as he spoke, he had begun browsing through the tiny library of old volumes of ballads and history that had once been such a treasure to him but that he hadn’t opened in years.

  Sensing that the moment had come for which he had long waited, Duncan smiled. The mystery of their mutual heritage beckoned the young heir of a legacy he was about to discover as his own. The fulfillment of his own ancestral charge was at hand.

  “I’ll jist throw some fresh peats on the fire,” said Duncan, though his guest hardly heard him now, “an’ add water t’ the pot for tea gien ye like.”

  “Yes . . . yes, thank you . . . that will be fine,” mumbled Andrew. “Maybe I will look through some of your old books, if you don’t mind, and see if I can’t find one of those old tales you introduced me to when I was a boy.”

  Already he had located the oversized volume he had thought of when walking earlier and was turning the leaves over with care to the first tale he had been trying to recall to mind ever since. His eyes fell upon the full-page engraving of the ancient Celtic traveler of prehistoric byways, spear in hand, giant behemoth lying dead behind him.

  The very sight of the old black-and-white woodcut transported him back in time.

  He was a boy of seven again, wide-eyed, eager, engrossed in the tale. Slowly he stepped backward, holding the book with both hands, eyes riveted to the page, and eased back into the chair.

  He was unaware of the old Scotsman pausing behind him before leaving the room, taking one final look at the important young politician seated with the open book in front of the enlivened fire.

  Duncan MacRanald smiled.

  He was needed no longer. It was time for the magic of his homeland to weave its spell. He left the cottage and was soon on his way to check on his sheep.

  Meanwhile, Andrew’s deep green eyes were as wide as they had been as a child. The years, the decades, the centuries, finally even millennia tumbled away, as he was carried away, back to the era when man first began to come to this island he called home.

  1. The proposed platform of legislation upon which a party bases the nationwide campaign of its candidates for Parliament.

  5

  The Wanderer

  Antiquity

  One

  The man rose from where the body lay. A solitary tear formed in his eye.

  He did not know the word wife. His elemental language made no distinction between woman, wife, and mother. But he had spent nearly ten years with this friend, and he cared for her. She had made him warm in their crude hut overshadowed by the White Mountains. And she had borne him a son.

  The year, by reckonings still millennia in the future, was some two score of centuries before the time of Christ. But the man knew neither years nor dates. He knew there were warm seasons when the soil could be dug, when his woman planted seeds that produced food. He knew there were cold seasons when the mountain became covered with white and the land was hard and unfriendly.

  He and his fellows in these lands north of the Great Sea others called Mediterranean were only beginning to harness the incipient fragmentary powers of their minds. Humans of embryo civilizations in the deserts of the pharaohs and the dynasties far to the east had taken rationality a few steps further. But among the races of which this man was a part, the process of thought remained as rudimentary as their tools, their weapons, and their homes. Conjecture and analysis yet lay outside the matrix of familiar exercises for their brains. Instinct, hunger, and the elemental emotions of their humanness
drove them in equal share with their dawning intellects. They did not know that in this fertile region of rivers and valleys north of the Great Mountains, they were slowly becoming a people whose influence would spread throughout the world as surely as that of the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Chinese.

  As the climate gradually warmed and they spread farther north into the verdant plains between the three great rivers, these herdsmen and hunters had only begun to experiment with techniques of planting and harvesting. Those who occupied this vast region were loosely linked only by their common emergence out of a prehistoric complexity of related peoples who had made their way here from the Mesopotamian crescent where life itself had begun. It would be another two or three thousand years before they would assimilate into the warlike confederation of tribes who, with forged iron swords, would dominate the landmass north of growing Rome and west of dying Greece.

  To later Greeks and Romans, these people would seem a large, wild-eyed, and hairy race of savage barbarians. But the man standing over the corpse of his dead wife knew nothing of what his people would later become. He only knew what he felt in his heart—the anger, the grief, the love.

  For he was a Celt. Or such he would one day be called.

  These tribes of the southern Germanic plains would gradually coalesce into a powerful race that would sweep over the continent like a raging wildfire, vanquishing all who dared stand before them. To the diverse breeds of their progeny, the Celts would give the color red—the red of fire . . . the fire of energy, creativity, passion, cruelty, conquest, and vibrant life.

  This man, however, would by then long have left the central European continent behind him. As the sky brought seasons of change to the land, so the ill fortunes of man’s barbarity had brought such to him. The future race whom the Greeks called the Keltoi would have to rise and conquer this land without benefit of his progeny.

  He would take his lineage elsewhere, to sire a people far away.

  He was a big man for his time, though erect he would not quite have measured six feet, muscular of limb, with wide shoulders, bare of covering and hairy. His hands and feet were disproportionately large and needed to be, for they were the primary tools of his survival. The light brown hair that spread in all directions from his head, tangled and plentiful, did not stop at his neck but spread down across his back and brawny frame. His cheeks and chin and lips, large featured and abrupt, were covered with beard, which likewise spread downward over his neck and onto an expansive, rippling chest. This was the warm season, and thus he was clad in soft animal skin only about his midsection.