Jamie MacLeod

by Michael Phillips

  “Oh, Papa!” she sobbed as she absently tucked it into her pocket.

  “Jamie, it belongs to . . . it belongs . . .” He tried to speak, but his coughing prevented him from finishing. “Doesn’t matter . . .” he finally breathed.

  Throughout the following day she nursed him as best she could, but the elements had exacted their toll from his already weakened body. His fever raged and his breathing grew more and more labored.

  When night came, he made one last effort to speak to his daughter—knowing it was to say goodbye.

  “Jamie,” he whispered, “ye have been a sweet bairn . . .”

  “Thank ye, Papa. But jist rest noo.”

  “Ye should o’ had mair . . . I’ve not been a good—”

  “No, Papa! Ye been so good t’ me an’ Mama. I love ye!”

  “Ah, my bairn . . . my bairn. If only—if only I hadna failed, ye would hae been a gran’ lady someday—if only—”

  “Ye ne’er failed, Papa!” said Jamie, crying now. “I’ll be a lady fer ye yet. I will, Papa!”

  But Gilbert MacLeod had not heard his daughter’s sobbing outburst, for even as he uttered his final words, the sounds about him grew faint and the life ebbed from his tired body.

  Jamie threw herself upon him weeping, feeling none of the mystery, but certainly much of the loneliness of death. That he was dead she somehow instinctively knew, even though she tried to persuade herself he was but sleeping again. He looked more peaceful than she ever remembered seeing him.

  Then four words from the past tumbled into her mind. How she could have recalled them she did not know, but she had heard them after her mother died. A woman who had come to visit had spoken them. “She looked so peaceful,” the woman had said. With the memory and the look on her father’s face, at last the full truth broke upon Jamie: her father was gone from her forever, just as her mother had been taken earlier.

  She lay her head again upon his chest and sobbed.

  Graystone’s agent found her in the morning curled up asleep on the floor next to the bed where her father’s cold body lay.

  The ensuing several days became a mournful blur to the orphaned child. She was carried off to the home of the miller. She remembered the kind and gentle voice of the miller’s wife. Snatches of the horrible procession with a cart carrying a box shrouded in black would now and then invade her memory, but they seemed like pages out of a picture book rather than like anything she herself had witnessed. The picture was not of their old mare, or their cart, or their things on their way to Aberdeen. This cart stopped at the churchyard and the box was put into a big hole in the ground and people threw handfuls of dirt on it, and someone—but not the miller’s wife—made her throw a handful of dirt, too. She still didn’t get to see inside the church. Some people were crying and she cried too, because she was alone and she wanted to see Papa again. But then she remembered that Papa had looked so peaceful, and he was gone—and she would never see him again.

  ———

  Some days later the miller packed Jamie’s belongings into the old trunk where she had always kept her few dresses, and loaded it onto his cart. His wife tucked Jamie into a corner of the cart and kissed her tenderly. There were tears in the kind woman’s eyes as she wondered what the future held for the poor, homeless child.

  “I wish we could keep ye,” she said. “But it wouldn’t be right when ye got someone who’s family.”

  “Am I gaein’ t’ Aberdeen?” Jamie asked, her eyes widening. Maybe Papa was there already.

  “No, child. Yer gran’father’ll be wantin’ ye noo.”

  The cart pulled away with a jerky motion, and the miller’s wife faded into the distance, taking her kind smile with her.

  Jamie slept most of the way. Late in the afternoon she turned around and saw the great mountain looming large ahead of them, and terrible-looking. Almost immediately their way grew steeper, and before she knew it the mountain seemed to surround them in its mists—gray and stark and cold, for its beauty was now hidden beneath the mask of approaching winter.

  Jamie was afraid. She hoped the cart would find the valley again. But the cart continued steeply up the hillside, and when it finally stopped, Jamie found herself in the very heart of Donachie.

  Part II

  Finlay MacLeod

  6

  The Shepherd

  The quiet bleating of sheep was the only sound in the craggy mountain canyon. An old man followed them without a word, occasionally prodding an errant lamb with his staff. He had been over this path countless times, and even his failing vision did not daunt his sure-footed stride. His feet struck the rocky earth with a firmness that belied his seventy years.

  The picturesque procession climbed over a rise and began a slow descent into a sheltered dell where the grass was green and lush from recent summer rains. Soon the sounds of the sheep were mingled with the musical bubbling of a small burn winding its way between the rocks and through many hidden glens and pools, then gradually down the side of the majestic mountain called Donachie.

  The white-haired shepherd led his charges to the edge of the burn where it tumbled into a deep still brown pool, and while they drank eagerly of the topaz-brown, peat-stained cool water and helped themselves to mouthfuls of the rich grass which grew down to its side, he knelt down and had a drink himself.

  He sighed contentedly and murmured, “Thank ye, Lord. Ye always lead me beside yer still waters, jist like yer son David said.”

  He set himself near a small cluster of medium-sized rocks, leaning against one of the larger ones; from this vantage point on the edge of the small herd he kept a watchful eye on his sheep. Occasionally his lips broke out in an unconscious quiet tune, but mostly he simply watched the activity of the animals in front of him as if it were the most satisfying task in the world.

  After some time his attention was drawn toward an old scots fir where he had noted some rustling in the branches and occasional flickers of color. All at once the object of his gaze winged out of the tree in a flash of dark blue and black. He was not surprised to see the great peregrine falcon, for he had been following its nesting activities for many days now. The great animal swooped gracefully toward the burn, and then for the first time the shepherd spotted its prey—a small brown curlew. With instinctive response the small bird, alerted to its danger, immediately dove into the water. Not to be deterred so easily, the falcon hovered above the water until the curlew reappeared. Then the drama was played out again. This occurred several more times until the falcon finally grew weary of its sport and flew off in search of a simpler meal.

  As the falcon crested the rise over which the shepherd had entered the dell, the insistent bleating of a lamb suddenly broke in upon the man’s thoughts, diverting his attention.

  “Ah, Finlay!” he muttered. “Ye haena been at yer job!”

  An adventuresome lamb, whose frisky tendencies had more than once given the man trouble, had wandered up the opposite craggy wall of the dell, and getting so high, found he could not come down again. There he stood, helpless, bleating a demand for someone to come rescue him. The shepherd pulled himself to his feet, bracing his stiff body on his staff for a few seconds until he could fully straighten up. Then he strode across the grassy meadow and was just starting up the steep incline when a voice called out to him from above, hidden from his view by the sunlight coming over the rocks.

  “Gran’daddy!”

  He looked up, shielded his eyes from the sun, and returned the grin peering radiantly down upon him from the ridge above. His broad smile brought the hundreds of wrinkles on his brown and weathered face to life. The figure perched among the rocks may not have been as clear in the focus of his ancient eyes as it once would have been, but the voice was music to his old ears and brought a song to his heart.

  “A lamb be caught,” he called.

  “I see him,” the voice replied. “Dinna move. I’ll get him frae here.”

  The youth was about seventeen years old and slight o
f frame and limb with a shock of short-cropped dark hair tucked beneath a ragged wide-brimmed hat which was in perfect keeping with the drab oft-patched breeches and homespun tunic. But the lanky body was lithe and agile and descended over the rocks and through the thorny mountain brush with the ease of a highland roe.

  The lamb was within reach in a matter of moments, and stopped its clamor the instant the hands of the rescuer grasped its white woolly coat. Tucked safely in the young shepherd’s arms, the animal seemed almost to sigh contentedly, and the two continued over the rocks to the grassy carpet below.

  The old man walked up to the pair and first looked sternly at the lamb and scolded it gently. “Ye’re a troublesome one. Noo, be off t’ yer mither!”

  Then turning to the youth, he smiled and said, “Ye saved my auld banes some wear. What would I do wi’ oot ye, Jamie, lass?”

  But for boy’s clothing and a tanned, smudged face, in some respects Gilbert MacLeod’s daughter had changed little in ten years’ time. Though cropped short, her hair was still rich and lustrous, and her emerald eyes still sparkled when she laughed. Indeed, many mistook Jamie for a boy upon first glance. Though her body had rounded and shaped itself slowly, womanhood had stolen upon this child of the mountain by such gradual degrees that she was hardly aware of it herself. Her grandfather saw it but said little; he did not want to lose another young one to the passage of time.

  But there was little danger of that. Though her body teetered wonderfully and precariously between childhood and womanhood, in Jamie’s eyes still flashed the exhilaration of innocent youth. Though her slight frame often did not betray her years, the inner vitality exuding from within it revealed a strength far beyond her years.

  She threw back her head and laughed wholesomely and fully. “’Twill be the day when ye’re needin’ my help, Gran’daddy!”

  “What’s bringin’ ye oot t’ the meadow this time o’ the day?”

  “Ye haena forgotten? I was bringin’ ye supper. But in the excitement wi’ the lamb, I left it upo’ the ridge. I’ll be richt back!”

  She sprang across the grass in the direction she had come and, foregoing the path which wound some way eastward before making the gradual ascent, she scurried up the rocky face where the animal had been trapped. Finlay MacLeod watched with delight; the girl never failed to stir within him a deep well of pride and joy. From the moment she came into his home ten years ago, she had brought with her something that had long been missing—a stirring, invigorating purpose.

  Yes, Finlay knew where all purpose originated. He had always been content with the life the Creator had marked out for him. But when the child came, it was as if God had added a special gem to His glorious purpose—replacing with his granddaughter the son he had lost to the valley some twenty years before.

  Finlay had deeply mourned the death of his son. How his heart ached that Gilbert had never been able—or willing—to return to his home on the mountain! It was more than mere luck that brought them together and allowed Finlay to share his mourning with his granddaughter. Together they wept, together they comforted one another, and together they grew strong again in the healing that follows the winter. In this way the relationship that might otherwise have been awkward and difficult grew quite naturally over the years into a bond even deeper than the common blood that flowed through their veins. As the years had passed, the memory of Gilbert gradually gave way in Finlay’s mind to the reality of his relationship with Jamie. Without loving his son the less, he was able to pour himself into his granddaughter in a way his own son could never permit. But knowing the pride and ambition that had ultimately killed his son, he could not suppress the hidden fear that the same thing might lure Jamie away from Donachie when she came of age and began to feel the tug of the world.

  But perhaps his fears were unfounded. She was a lass, after all, and lasses were different from lads.

  But there were times he’d come upon her without her knowing he was watching, when, catching her unaware, he’d see a far-off gaze in those emerald eyes—the same look Gilbert had evinced before he walked away from Donachie. He had left and never returned. It was natural, then, that old Finlay clung with a certain possessiveness to his granddaughter.

  But now as he watched Jamie descend the bluff, he almost laughed within himself at his fears. She loved the mountain, too, and knew it almost as well as he did who had spent his entire life there. If occasionally she seemed distant, he also saw in her eyes a love and a oneness with the wild place that had become her home.

  7

  Sunset

  If Jamie had been conscious of fears that first day on Donachie, they were now only a distant memory of the past. Sometimes those early years in what her grandfather called the lowlands—which were really not the lowlands at all—were but a vague glimmer of another life that hardly seemed her own. Yet she tried to keep those memories alive and dear, and to hold a sharp and clear picture of her father in her heart. But it was difficult when she knew how painful it was for her grandfather to speak of him. He never became angry with her inquiries, but each time a wall as impenetrable as stone shot up between them which forced her to silence.

  Lately the frequency of her questions, and with them an undefined sense of disquiet, seemed to be growing. Perhaps it was a natural outgrowth of maturity. But whatever the cause, forces from beyond the mountain were nagging at her more and more. Last night she had had a terrible dream. She had been walking over a familiar path contentedly breathing in the lovely fragrance of the mountain, filled with the happy delight of her surroundings. Suddenly her father appeared over the next rise in front of her. She knew it was he, for he called to her in the way she always remembered—”Jamie, my bairn,” he said. His hand was stretched out to her and she ran toward him joyfully. But when she looked up into his face, the joy vanished and she screamed out in terror—the form had no face!

  She awoke in a sweat, crying out, “Papa! . . . Papa!” If Finlay heard her on the other side of the single-room cottage, he made no attempt to come to her and comfort her. It was likely he was praying for her in the silence of his own bed. But it was also likely he could not bear to comfort her longings for her father.

  Now lying on the grass with the peace of the mountain all about her, listening to the sheep and the bubbling burn, she tried to understand. Had she loved him less, she might have been an easy prey to a growing root of bitterness in her heart at his seeming obstinacy to let her know her own father, even if only in memory. But she did love him, and she knew he was only trying to protect her from the same pitfalls, and protect himself from the pain of his own broken relationship with his son. The dear old man had taken her in and cared for her and taught her all the wonders of Donachie. Whatever she knew of life and God’s creation, she had learned from him. She could not resent him if he withheld a small part of his heart from her. She realized she could repay him, not with combative and painful questions about her father, but by accepting things as they were.

  Still, new forces were rising within her. In her purity and innocence she could hardly realize their implications. But maturity and adulthood were sprouting inside, and would soon blossom in earnest. Womanhood, which was yet only a hint, a suggestion, was rapidly on its way too. Things were changing for young Jamie. Though she could not see where these forces were taking her, she could feel the stirrings in some deep vault of her being.

  And through it all, the fact remained that the aspiring blood of Gilbert MacLeod coursed through her veins. Even from the grave, his own yearnings reached out and turned her eyes to the horizons of life, engendering in her a shadowy discontent to remain satisfied with only what was under her feet. She had loved her father with a totality only a motherless single child could. She did not want to forget him! And the realization that the memory of her father was indeed fading slowly into the recesses of her mind was heartbreaking. He was becoming, as the terrifying dream so graphically depicted, a frightening, faceless apparition.

  She was therefore
torn both ways—toward two men she loved with all her heart. Could she have them both? Could she cling to the present and the dear love of her beloved grandfather and still keep alive within her own soul the dreams her father had passed on to her?

  “Look, Jamie!” Finlay’s old voice interrupted her thoughts. “The auld falcon’s comin’ home. He didna get the curlew, but he’s got dinner all the same.”

  For a few moments she watched the falcon, its prey tucked securely in its powerful beak; but the introspective mood in which she had uncharacteristically found herself could not so easily be shaken. Soon her eyes and mind had wandered again to other things.

  The sun had sunk low in the western sky. In another hour it would drop below the rise and leave the little dell washed in the color and shadows of the summer gloaming. Something about the sun slipping from sight simultaneously disturbed her and sent a thrill of excitement and anticipation surging through her body.

  “Gran’daddy,” she asked quietly some time later, “whaur the sun be goin’ noo?”

  “I dinna ken, lass.”

  “Will it be risin’ on some ither land, someplace else, far awa?”

  “Aye. I s’pose ye’re right.”

  “What are they like, Gran’daddy, those ither lands?”

  “The mountain’s the only place that matters, Jamie,” Finlay replied, and his voice seemed to have caught a sudden chill from the sunless dell.

  “Didna God make them all, Gran’daddy?”

  “Aye, He did.”

  “Then the ither lands must be important, too.”

  “Aye, important t’ them that’s there. But not t’ us. What does any ither place matter when we hae the best o’ His creation?”

  “I dinna ken,” she said as she followed the fading sun with a distant gaze in her eyes. “’Tis jist that Papa wanted t’ see them I think, an’ I canna help mysel’ wonderin’ what’s oot there.”