Jamie MacLeod

by Michael Phillips

  “I know, Gran’daddy. I can feel the winter too. An’ that’s why I’m takin’ oot the sheep today. Ye stay here an’ rest.”

  “Too late fer rest, child . . . too late. I wasna speakin’ o’ the winter!”

  “I’m takin’ the sheep oot, Gran’daddy,” Jamie insisted as she pulled on her coat and walked to the door. “I was hopin’ t’ be alone t’ study today; I hae a surprise fer ye.”

  “Do ye noo?” he said, but his voice sounded distracted. “An’ can ye nae study jist as well here?”

  “’Tis better ootside in the cauld air.”

  With the words she closed the door behind her and hurried off before he could argue any further. She had grown worried about him and wanted him out of the cold. Glancing back toward the cottage, she saw him standing in the doorway. He was not watching her, but again was looking to the mountain high above her, peering into the distance. She followed his gaze, then shook her head and said to herself, “He’s nae doobt right. Snow’s a-comin’! I can feel it too.” She pulled her coat the more tightly around her shoulders and quickened her pace.

  Despite the cold, the day was clear and bright. The clouds that would bring the snows to the highlands were not visible to the eye, only to the senses. The bluffs surrounding the dell to which she took the sheep seemed sharper and crisper and more real and beautiful than ever. Even the grass, struggling now against the harsh northern elements, looked greener and richer. Jamie found it hard to believe that within a short time—a few days, perhaps hours—it would all be covered with a thick blanket of white snow.

  She settled herself down in a dry spot sheltered from the cool breeze and opened Finlay’s Bible which she had sneaked out of the house without his noticing. With some effort she opened it to Psalm 121. For the last weeks, since her lessons had begun in earnest, she had been spending every spare moment poring over this passage. She knew it was her grandfather’s favorite; he had read it countless times to her. Now she wanted to surprise him by reading it for herself!

  The process was slow and difficult, for the words she knew by sight were still few. But she was familiar enough with the gist of the passage, that, with the words she knew and the sounds of the letters which she painstakingly applied to those she didn’t, she had, after several weeks, learned the entire psalm. She hoped he would approve, even though she would surely sound more English as she said it than his Scottish ears would like her to.

  “I will lift up mine een t’ the hills, frae whence help comes . . .”

  She tingled with excitement!

  Tonight when she and her grandfather sat down at the old table, she would open the book and actually read it to him! It would be the most precious gift she had ever given him. It would be her way of thanking him, not only for teaching her to read, but also for the deep trust in her it had represented.

  The days were growing shorter, and it did not seem long before the shadows on the bluffs began to lengthen and the sun began to slip away into the valley of the west. Jamie drove the sheep back to their pen, and if she drove them a little too quickly, they did not mind.

  The cottage was still quiet as she turned the latch. No sounds came from within as she stepped across the threshold.

  It was chilly inside.

  “Gran’daddy,” she called softly.

  There was no reply.

  Quickly she glanced around. A hunk of cheese sat on the table. He had brought it in from the byre—probably for her.

  The fire was cold.

  Frantically she looked about, then to her astonishment saw that Finlay was lying on his bed—motionless.

  With heart pounding she ran toward him. He would never take to his bed so early in the day unless something was dreadfully wrong.

  Fearfully she knelt down. One arm dangled over the side of the bed and she reached out to lift it into place. But the moment she grasped the beloved hand she dropped it in dread.

  It was cold—icy cold.

  “Gran’daddy!” she said, her voice trembling.

  “Gran’daddy!” she shouted. “Gran’daddy!”

  But he did not stir. There was no flutter even of his eyelids. She sank to her knees next to him and wept. She knew he was not asleep.

  Whatever he had felt in the air had come before the winter’s snows. He had gone to the high country.

  ————

  Jamie’s tears did not stay with her long. As the deeper grief assailed her, it seemed to dry the wellsprings of emotion for a time. The sense of loss was too great to be contented with tears, although they would come in their season. But for the rest of the day she could not cry, she could not speak, she could not pray. All was numb. As she knelt beside him she could not fathom the thought that her grandfather would never more answer the questions of a growing girl, that she would never again hear that gentle, wise, tender old voice. Perhaps something deep within her subconscious remembered the futile tearful cries of a young child long ago over a dead father. Those tears had not helped then.

  And now, as the child had done so many years ago, Jamie fell asleep next to her dead grandfather. He had gone to where all true waking begins, but she must remain, and must therefore dull the pain of life with sleep.

  In the morning she awoke wondering why she was lying on the floor. She shivered involuntarily.

  The cottage was freezing.

  Then she remembered, and the dull ache returned to her heart.

  She did not look toward her grandfather’s bed again. She knew something must be done, and this time there was no one to come and take her away. She was alone.

  It did not occur to Jamie to seek help from the estate. Aviemere was to her as remote a world as Aberdeen had been to the wide-eyed young child of seven. She and her grandfather had always taken care of their own needs. Except for the infrequent appearance of the factor, the estate might as well never have existed. She had learned early in life to stand on her own and to make difficult decisions. She had gained a confidence beyond her years, which would as her life progressed quicken the maturity necessary to cope with change.

  She had been around animals long enough to understand the rudiments of what must be done with the dead. Her grandfather had always taught her that life was something more than the body which houses it, and now that her practical nature went about the necessary preparations, she told herself that he was more alive now than ever and that the body which lay cold and stiff in the cottage was no longer him. But the lonely mind rarely finds much comfort in such eternal truths.

  Jamie went to the byre, found a shovel and a pick, and then walked out in search of the right place to lay her grandfather’s body to rest. She chose a spot several hundred feet from the cottage. Now, under a clouded sky, it was a dull and dismal place. But in the summer, with the green elder standing over it, it was peaceful and bathed in warmth from the sun. This is where her grandfather would want to stay.

  The surface of the icy ground was hard as rock. Jamie loosened the sod with the pick before beginning to dig deeper. It took most of the morning, and when the grave was finally dug she returned to the byre, pulled out the rickety old cart, and with it transported Finlay’s body to the site. It seemed her small frame would collapse under the weight of the burdens she bore—but necessity added to the strength which in Jamie went far deeper than bone and sinew.

  As she scattered the dirt over her grandfather, covering him forever from her sight, at last the terrible pain in her heart burst to the surface.

  How alone she was!

  The only person who loved her was gone—the only person after her own father and mother she had loved. All about her was desolation.

  I should say something . . . do something . . . pray something, she thought as she stood beside the fresh grave. Something was called for at a moment like this. She was no longer a child. The weight of life now rested upon her own shoulders and no one else’s.

  Then she remembered the surprise she had prepared for her grandfather!

  Perhaps it wa
s for this very moment she had prepared it. Perhaps it would give him more joy now than it could have before. What more fitting eulogy could she give the man who had taught her everything!

  But not here—there was only one place fit to receive her sacrifice of love for the man who lay at her feet!

  ————

  An hour later, hot with the climb, the cold air piercing her lungs, Jamie scaled the summit of Donachie to stand once again on its peak. The clouds which had been hanging overhead had drifted away westward and all was clear in the rest of the sky. The winter’s sun was bright but pale. Jamie’s breath stood out from her face in bursts of white warmth in the bitter cold air.

  Quickly she glanced around, then turned her eyes down the hill in the direction from which she had come. She could just barely make out the cottage below her.

  “This is fer ye t’ remember me by, Gran’daddy,” she said softly. Then she lifted her voice and repeated the words which would be imprinted forever in her memory:

  I will lift up mine een t’ the hills, frae whence comes my help.

  My help comes frae the Lord, who made haiven an’ earth.

  He will nae suffer yer fut t’ be moved; he that keeps ye willna sleep.

  He that keeps Israel sall neither slumber nor sleep.

  The Lord is yer keeper: the Lord is the shade upo’ yer right han’.

  The sun sall nae smite ye by day, nor the moon by nicht.

  The Lord sall preser ye frae all ill; he sall preser yer soul.

  The Lord sall preser yer gaein’ an’ yer comin’ frae noo till all time, an’ fer e’ermore.

  As Jamie spoke the words of the psalm, the tears of grief began to flow once again. The words her grandfather loved opened the gates and the tears streamed uncontrolled down her face. As she finished speaking, the words seemed to go on and on, but now spoken in Finlay’s raspy voice and thick brogue. As she looked about her, upon the mountain that had been his life, and heard the words echoed, “I will lift up mine een t’ the hills, frae whence comes my help,” her heartbroken soul was not able to fully grasp their significance.

  But her spirit stored them up, along with the memory of the face from whose mouth the very words seemed to emanate. Not only was this her own eulogy to her grandfather, this psalm had been her grandfather’s final prayer for her as he had collapsed upon his bed. And now, through the book that had been his life, he reached across the bonds of death to touch her spirit indelibly and forever.

  At length, drying her eyes and drawing in a deep breath of the cold mountain air, Jamie sent her gaze far off toward the distant horizon.

  Could she just make out the blue of the sea? Or was the sky playing tricks upon her eye?

  “What is oot there?” she wondered to herself. “I maun find out, Gran’daddy,” she said, this time aloud. “I hope noo ye can understan’. There’s somethin’ oot beyon’ these hills that’s beckonin’ t’ me.”

  Slowly she turned her sights all about her. The snow was already visible to the southwest on the distant highland mountains of Grampian. To the south the valley of the Dee wound from the sea inland to its origins west of Braemar. To the north and out of her sight, the valley of Strathbogie lived on as if unconcerned with the vicious snows that fell in the higher regions.

  But always her gaze returned eastward toward the sea.

  The blood of Gilbert MacLeod flowed warm in his daughter on this cold winter’s day. And in her eyes could be seen Gilbert’s far-off gaze toward the horizon—the unknown land of dreams.

  1. John 10:10–16

  11

  Winter

  Time now passed slowly for Jamie.

  Had it been spring or summer it might have been different. She could then have roamed about the mountain with the sheep. But as the first snows began to make their appearance, she was confined more and more to the environs of the cottage. The peat for the winter had already been cut, dried, and stored. The sheep required little attention beyond an hour or two on some days, and there was little to keep her occupied.

  For a time even her interest in reading was gone; it reminded her too painfully of the happy evenings with her grandfather—a close bond between them that now seemed to have come too late. The unrest which had occasioned her outburst the day of the storm when she had climbed Donachie in the rain began to take sharper focus, although she could still not isolate any course of action she was to follow.

  She lay down in her bed one night, her mind full of the conflicts of trying to decide what to do. As she drifted off, her sleep was fitful and agitated. She dreamed she was standing on the mountain, but she could not recognize the place. It was early in summer and all was green and lovely. As before, Gilbert stood at some distance before her beckoning her to come. His face remained a blur, but it was not frightening as it had been the last time.

  She turned, and saw her grandfather, far away, also entreating her to come to him. From one to the other she stared in utter confusion. The silent battle seemed to last an eternity. And she stood in the very center. The battle was in her will—which direction would she go?

  At length Finlay drew his hands slowly back to himself, smiled, and then she thought she saw him slowly nod his head. As she looked he began to fade from sight. At the same time, turning in the other direction, the previously blank features of her father were taking fuzzy and undefined shape. Finlay was almost gone from her vision now, and she could not bear it. She screamed out for him to help her, but no voice would come. Her father was now walking toward her, his face distinct and younger-looking than she ever remembered seeing it—and happy and peaceful, too. She began walking toward him, then started to run. She looked back over her shoulder again. Her grandfather had almost completely disappeared. Again she tried to call out to him . . .

  Suddenly she was awake, in her own bed, alone, in the cottage. Her perspiring body trembled, and her raw throat told her she had indeed been screaming out in the night.

  Jamie crawled from the bed and rekindled the dying fire. It was early morning. Dawn would not break for an hour or more, but despite the darkness she knew a return to sleep would be hopeless. Had it been June she would already have been out on the hills in the full light of morning. But in the dead of winter’s cold, the days were short.

  Aimlessly she wandered about the cottage in search for something to occupy her. Unconsciously she put on the kettle, but neither breakfast nor any household chores seemed important at such a time. At last she pulled on her winter boots and heavy coat and trudged out to the byre. Missy would be awake by now and in need of milking.

  Missy turned as she approached, gave a lazy half-moo deep in her throat and whisked her tail back and forth as if to acknowledge the presence of her young mistress. Arranging the pail and stool, Jamie began the task her fingers could have carried out in her sleep. As she sat there her idle mind wandered back to the dream. Had her grandfather been yielding, giving his permission for her to follow her father? Is that what the fading of the one face and the growing reality of the other was to signify?

  If that were true, she should have felt a wonderful release! Instead, she could not escape the awful desolation that had stolen over her at the fading of her grandfather’s form. Yet, there was something in her father’s eyes she had to follow, something he had wanted her to do she had to fulfill. But her grandfather had been her life, her rock. He had taught her everything. He had prepared her to stand alone. He had taught her about life, about the mountain, about God. She could never leave all that—even to follow the path her father set before her!

  Was there no way to fulfill her life in the eyes of both men whom she knew must still love her? Was there no way to follow her father’s dream, to follow his distant gaze to far horizons, to fulfill his hopes, to be the lady he had always wanted her to be, and yet still live the life of godly simplicity which had been the essence of her grandfather’s existence? Did the one form have to fade while the other grew clearer? Could they not both look down on her with smile
s on their faces, pleased with what they saw?

  Jamie’s stomach churned and she shook her head as if to shake free of the confusion which was so intent on hounding her. She set down the pail and looked aimlessly about the byre. Without being aware that she had even turned in that direction, suddenly she realized her eyes were resting on the old trunk still sitting against the wall. She had not touched it since that first day when her grandfather had come upon her. She had always planned on opening it again, with him, when he deemed the time right.

  When the time was right . . .

  The vision of her dream came again into her mind. She saw old Finlay again as she had in the dream, quietly and contentedly nodding his head.

  Could this be the time? What had he been trying to tell her?

  “Oh, Gran’daddy!” she sighed.

  At that moment he had again become closer to her than any other distant figures out of the past—even her father. How she missed him! But he had been trying to tell her something. He had been—she was sure of it!—releasing her to follow her father. During his lifetime he had so staunchly tried to keep her from the world which had lured her father away. Now it seemed he had told her to go. Was this God’s answer to the cries of her heart?

  Slowly she rose. With even a greater awe than before, she approached the old black trunk. Whatever answers there were for her must lie inside.

  She opened it. Nothing had changed; all was exactly as she had left it.

  Again her hand reached out toward the faded, homely little dresses. One after another she held them up to the light of the lantern.

  She could almost hear her father’s voice now, smiling as he turned his little girl around looking her over approvingly from head to toe.

  “You’ll soon be a lady, you will, Jamie, my bairn, and be goin’ to fancy balls in the city, and wearin’ even prettier dresses! But you’re a pretty one now, you are!”

  A lady!

  Did he really mean it?