Scotland, 1748
I sit on a hillside, watching over our sheep. My father, Athair, is busy fetching wood for the fire. I am only nine. but he lets me look after the sheep. My mother, Mháthair, is at home with the cook, making broth for dinner. I have three younger brothers and two sisters who all have ginger hair, and white skin the same colour as the sheep. I also have skin the same colour as the sheep, and ginger hair. Mháthair always fusses and insists that we wear our hats outside because the sun will burn our faces. Athair’s hair is a dark-red-orange, while Mháthair’s hair is dark brown. I have Mháthair’s eyes. They are the same colour as the bluebells that grow wild in the woodlands. Athair, and all my brothers and sisters have blue eyes too, but they are not as blue as my mother’s and mine. I like Mháthair better than my father.
Because I am the oldest, Athair always chooses me to do the important jobs. Though he sometimes makes me do jobs I don’t like, like helping the servants in the fields, and I don’t know why I should have to help in the fields when my brothers can stay in the woods building dens all day. I whack thistle heads with my stick because thinking about Athair makes me angry. Once, after it rained, I was showing my brothers how to make mud pies. My father told me to watch them, but it went dark while we were still throwing pies at each other. My father found us, went red in the face, and grabbed my ear. When we got home, he tanned my hide with the apple tree switch, then sent me to bed without broth. I couldn’t sleep and my tummy made growling noises.
I wipe my hair off my face and think about my mother. I like her better than Athair even though she is always in a bad mood. I don’t think she loves me. I don’t think she loves any of us apart from my baby sister. And I don’t know why Athair isn’t nice to her. My mother and father always quarrel, and it makes me sad. I think it is my fault that my parents are always angry.
I poke at the hard ground with my stick. I am crying. I wipe my face with my shirt and look around, pleased that no one can see me crying like a baby. There are only the sheep. I flop on my back and look at the clouds and see a giant dragon puffing smoke out of its nostrils. I lie here thinking about what I want to be when I grow up. After a long time, I decide that I will be the leader of an army, and a laird, and have hundreds of servants and a wife with long-red hair, and everyone will call us Lord and Lady MacLean, just like my parents. But I know I will not treat my wife the same way that my father treats Mháthair. And my red-haired wife and I will be very happy.
‘Lachlan!’ I hear my father yell, busting my daydream. ‘Where the hell are ye?’
‘Up here, Athair,’ I call back, sitting up. My father climbs the knoll with the help of his shillelagh stick, a present from one of his Irish friends, and stands there staring at me with an angry look on his face. I know why. The sheep have gone, all but one woolly ewe that is munching grass nearby. I look around and spot the flock in the distance, grazing on a hillside.
My father scolds me. ‘A wulnae tell ye again. Have ’em back for tatties and leeks, or ye’ll be going hungry again.’
Sore at him, I pick up my stick and run after the sheep.
At home, Athair scolds me again. ‘Ye should be grateful for being able to live in a castle and have the biggest playground any boy could wish for. Ye should be grateful knowing that one day all of it; the castle and the twenty-thousand acres of land will be yours.’
I know I will, but Athair makes me work too hard for it. He makes me work so hard for something that I won’t get for a long time. I hate him when he punishes me for something I didn’t mean to do.
And when he has worked in the fields from camhanaich to sunset, he comes home tired and grumpy and impatient for Mháthair to serve him dinner. Sometimes he takes me with him into the fields, and makes me work just as hard as he does, otherwise when we get home, he tells Mháthair I don’t deserve any dinner. I cannot wait to grow up.
◊.◊.◊
My weaponry practice coach pulls off his helmet, freeing his unruly mop of flaxen hair. He wipes the back of his hand across his perspiring forehead and says, ‘Naw, hold it the way I showed ye, laddie.’
I adjust my sword to the angle he corrected me on earlier. Holding weapons the right way is crucial, I know, but sometimes it is hard to be serious while I am practising with a targe in one hand and a child’s wooden sword in the other. I am itching to use one of the claymore swords my coach keeps locked away. ‘You cannae use them yet, laddie, you’re only thirteen. Wait till ye grow some orange whiskers to match ye orange hair,’ he jokingly said to me. For now, my coach, Mr Breathnach, is my opponent, and today’s lesson is the Inside Half-Hanger.
Mr Breathnach, a tall man with an oval face and a mouth full of crowded teeth, holds his sword on my left side and pretends to cut across my belly. ‘Keep ye tip down. Hold the hilt to ye left side. That’s the way, laddie.’
He beckons another student, a year or two older than I, who has been standing at the side of the field, watching. He and I duel with our blunt wooden swords, and it is just as well because the end of his sword jabs me in my left side, just below my ribcage. Had it been a real sword it could have pierced one of my kidneys, and I would have died.
Every day, after my normal schooling has ended, I ride my horse to weaponry practice. This is what I live, eat, and breathe for. It is the highlight of my day, my sole purpose in life. I dream of the day I will lead my army and go into battle and send the Sassenach running from Scotland with their tails between their legs.
My father’s stories about the British Dragoons keep alive my keen wish to be a soldier, to fight for my country. We would have been rich if Athair hadn’t given his treasures and gold away. He told me how the noblemen of Scotland gave gold and silver to Prince Charles Stuart so he could assemble an army to win back the throne. Athair told me that Prince Stuart’s grandsire had once held the throne but lost it to Prince William of Orange, and that Prince Stuart wanted it back. Bonnie Prince Charlie, my father called him. The prince’s plans didn’t work, and nearly all of his two-thousand clansmen were killed at the Battle of Culloden.
My father told me he lost most of his money, and was afraid he would lose his lands, but because the English government never had proof that he gave money to the cause, they allowed Athair to keep his castle and lands. He said he still has money tucked away for a rainy day, and an amount stashed for supporting the workers of our lands when times get tough, and that he expects the same of me when I take over.
I know he cares for his workers, and I think it is right that he pays attention to them, but sometimes I think he treats them better than us.
He is too old to fight for his country now, but that doesn’t matter. I will honour his wish of justice for Scotland because I hold the same wish, and I will carry it out even if it kills me.
Athair sympathises with me about the English, but he says I still need to focus on my studies that I am duty-bound to attend to daily. He keeps reminding me how much my education costs him, and I keep having to convince him I am doing well and that my tutor is pleased with me.
Maybe I should be grateful that my brothers and I have a private tutor. My sisters do not. They are not so lucky. They only have Mrs Wallace, a slight woman with mottled skin and thinning grey hair, who has lived with us for years. As children, Mrs Wallace was our governess. As we grew older, she stayed, and now teaches Cairstine and Flora to read and write, and also French. Our father thinks the girls should, instead, learn how to be good wives and keep house for their future husbands. Mrs Wallace also teaches them cross-stitch. I know Flora likes cross-stitch, but Cairs is not so fond of it. She says she wants to learn the same subjects that my brothers and I learn, and she wants to learn under our tutor, but Athair will not hear of it.
Sometimes I can be mean towards my sisters. I like to boast and wave my reports in their faces, because my tutor fills them with marks of excellence in English, Latin, French, and Mathematics. I think Athair is proud of me too, knowing that the heir to his large estate has intelligence. On my last birthday, he said to me that he trusts me, and is sure that our lands will stay as lands of Clan MacLean when he and Mháthair are gone and forgotten. When he told me this, I felt ashamed about the way I begrudged him.
Sunday is Family Day, a day when our family and Mrs Wallace take the family carriage to church. Although we are not Protestants, Athair says we need to worship in the Church of Scotland “to keep the powers that be, happy”. Proud as we are of the Catholic faith, my parents make sure we continue our Catholic ways at home. We have a small altar, at the southern end of our castle, with a statue of the Virgin Mary, which Mháthair kneels in front of on her purple-velvet cushion.
After the hymn singing and listening to the minister drone on and on reciting his long-winded sermon about forgiveness and loving our enemies, we file into the carriage and ride home.
◊.◊.◊
When I get home from hunting, I pull off my cowhide boots and sling my three rabbit carcasses onto the hearth.
‘Wild rabbits,’ my mother scoffs in her thick Scottish accent, glancing up from her needlework. ‘Next time bring home something that’ll fill the bellies of ye brothers and sisters.’ Her voice rises. ‘Don’t leave them there; take them to the cook.’
‘All right, Mháthair,’ I reply, annoyed. Howbeit, I pick up the rabbits and take them along the passage and into the kitchen.
A skitter of feet and a swish of a skirt catches my eye. A junior kitchen maid, I have not before seen, stands at the table, busily making bannocks. Head bent in concentration; her creamy white neck is exposed beneath her maid’s hat; wisps of soft-auburn tendrils catching the sunlight.
The cook notices me staring at the girl. She introduces the young lass as Fenella. Fenella turns in surprise, dipping a curtsy at me. My jaw falls slack at how bonnie she is.
‘Glad to meet ye,’ I say, theatrically bowing my head. Dunderheid. I am mortified by the blush that creeps up my neck and face.
‘Pleased to meet ye too.’ Fenella flashes a smile and turns back to her work.
For a moment or two I stand there, dazed, but soon realise it is causing the lassie discomfort. With a knowing look, the cook takes the rabbits from my grasp and starts preparing them for the evening meal.
‘Thank ye Master Lachlan. Now, will ye let us be while we get tea ready; there is much to do,’ she says with a cheery smile and a wave of her hand. Mrs Anderson, who is a short, round, fat lady with a doughy face, pendulous chin and a jolly disposition, has been our cook since I was a bairn.
◊.◊.◊
Over the following weeks, I tend to my studies, attend weaponry practice, and carry out my chores. But a funny feeling stirs inside me, one that I do not recognise or know how to handle. Even my enthusiasm for weaponry practice has dulled.
My father understands what is happening to me and takes me aside for a father/son talk. We go into his cabinet room. Athair sits on his old Orkney chair, and motions I sit as well.
‘I doubt that ye mother will say anything to ye, so I better had,’ he says, sighing. ‘It happens to all sixteen-year-old boys.’
◊.◊.◊
It is a relief to be told. It is a relief to find out that I’ve not caught a deadly disease. When I wake to sticky bedsheets I am not alarmed, though I know if Athair had not had that talk with me, I would have been.
It affects my mental state. All I can think about is Fenella and her creamy white neck. Lovesickness, my father tells me, will play mischief with my common sense, and that I can do well to stay away from “our serving lass” until I’m older and can handle things better. In my father’s eyes, my stature as a future laird does not allow for making friends with a serving girl, and he has made plain his point of view and expectations. But my feelings for her persist, and there is nothing I can do to thwart them. And neither do I want to.
◊.◊.◊
Instead of going to weaponry practice this afternoon, I go hunting. Finding different excuses to visit the kitchen takes over my mind, and I turn up with various wild game; mostly pheasant. A nice fat pheasant always makes an impression, I think.
The next time I enter the kitchen with an expectant grin, holding my catch in my fist, Mrs Anderson stands with her hands on her hips in an exaggerated pose. ‘Does it not occur to ye, laddie, that whatever ye hand over to Fenella, she will not be dining on it, and that it creates more work her?’
I drop my arm. I feel like a right ninny.
Red-faced again, I blunder an apology to Fenella, who responds, ‘Dinna fash yersel.’ Pardoned, I feel colossal relief.
But try as I might to steal the young lassie’s heart, she continues to play hard to get. Lately, Mrs Anderson has been giving Fenella extra tasks to do, and I am not sure whether it is of her doing or Fenella’s.
It is becoming harder and harder to spend a few precious moments with her. This morning, I wait for her arrival into the kitchen. Fenella breezes in with a beaming smile. Mrs Anderson is yet to arrive, so I snatch the moment. To my utter astonishment, Fenella returns my kiss. I bend my head for another and she giggles and lets me kiss her then squirms out of my embrace and skips away.
Fenella rewards me with a few more stolen kisses, but every time, she stops short, tittering, and scampers away. I am at a loss as to how she really feels about me. She is a mystery, and I am bewitched by her.
◊.◊.◊
‘Will you share a walk with me to the loch tomorrow,’ I ask with desperate brightness.
‘Yes. That would be nice,’ she replies airily.
A long last, daybreak splits the horizon. I throw off my bedclothes and jump out of bed. For most of the night I have lain awake, woolgathering. Though lack of sleep does not make me feel the least bit tired, nor dampen my spirit. In fact, I feel on top of the world, knowing that today Fenella and I will spend the entire day together, down by the loch. It will be the perfect day. The perfect day to profess my undying love for her, and I am confident that she will profess hers to me.
With the hush of the morning’s chorus not yet upon us, I throw out my father’s timeworn blanket and set up our picnic. Side by side we sit, as I wonder what to do next. The early morning sky folds back to reveal a feeble sun that has surfaced above the distant hills, but has yet to cast its warmth on our legs. The morning chill, no doubt, will stop us going for a paddle in the loch, just yet. The bannocks, wrapped in neat cloth bundles, will stay unopened for a few more hours. I remember what my weaponry practice pal said I should do. I turn and smile at Fenella, who returns the gesture. I take this as my cue. With a gentle romantic push, I lie her on her back and plant a kiss on her dainty rosebud mouth. With our lips still crushed together, I try to remember what he said to do next. I fumble with the strings on Fenella’s bodice, and finding an end to one of them, I tug it. A warm hand is at my breastbone and it shoves me aside. Before I realise what is happening, Fenella rolls away and scrambles to her feet.
‘What do ye think ye’re doin?’ she shrieks. Confused, I contemplate my dilemma, and tell myself I need to try harder. More gallantry, I decide. So, I pick up her hand and bring it to my lips, and, bending like I have seen in the plays, I kiss it, my other hand at my back.
‘Please forgive me my love,’ I say. My flamboyant manner, which I thought dashing, is not well received, and she snatches her hand away.
‘Fenella!’ I call after her as she mounts her horse and canters off. I watch her go, her curly-auburn locks bouncing against that creamy white neck. It is nowhere near noon yet; my perfect day I now declare beggared.
Fear not, I say to myself to feel better.
With only grasshoppers for company, I sit on the blanket and nibble at my bannock. I stare out at the quiet-blue wilderness of the loch and think about my next approach.
Hamish from weaponry practice comes to my aid. ‘All is not lost. You should pick her flowers.’
So off I go in search of the prettiest wildflowers I can find. When I present them to Fenella, she gracefully accepts the heather, white meadowsweet, and bluebells. I apologise, and from her coy expression, I consider myself forgiven. Again, I feel immense relief.
Weeks of courting bring strength to our mutual affection. Yet, I have made no real progress since my last bumbling attempt at the loch. Apart from allowing a few light kisses, Fenella continues to brush off any bids for advancement of our budding romance.
◊.◊.◊
As a gift for my beloved, I craft a treen saltbox that she can hang on the wall in the kitchen. As I examine my handiwork, I am pleased with myself, and consider it a useful present that I know she will like. To me, it is a grand achievement, and I feel a twinge of excitement. Hopeful — no, convinced that my gift will impress her, I find a large piece of tartan fabric from my mother’s holdall, and wrap it. Then I go looking for my Fenella.
I find her at the well, and my heart skips a beat. She is holding an empty pail, looking into the distance. I follow her gaze to a group of people in the fields, where I recognise two of our field hands, and Daroch. He looks as if he is showing them something.
‘Hah!’ She thinks my brother is me. I stifle a chuckle and sneak up behind her and grab her around the waist. Fenella leaps out of her skin.
‘What’re ye doin?’ After a moment or two of staring at me with a frozen, sharp expression, she cries, ‘Bog off, ye bampot!’ I step back, and the saltbox drops from my grasp with a thud. While I stand there gaping slack-jawed, she leaves the water bucket and storms off, calling, ‘Ye can be very annoying sometimes, Lachlan.’
Her remark cuts me to the core.
It is not until late September that I learn the truth. Fenella regards me as someone without experience nor wit to court her in the manner to which she is accustomed. She confided in Mrs Anderson; I know this because our cook let it slip while she was disapproving of me taking Fenella away from her tasks. With persuasion, I coaxed Mrs Anderson to acquaint me with Fenella’s feelings about me.
Mrs Anderson stops kneading dough and wipes her floury hands down her apron. ‘She thinks you’re a handsome enough lad, but thinks you will never make an honest woman of her.’
I am gobsmacked. Even so, this may be true; I cannot see into the future.
‘What’s more, laddie. Fenella’s eye has already fallen on ye younger brother. She thinks her long-term prospects may hold more promise with him.’
‘Daroch?!’ The news crushes me. And baffles me, for her future prospects with me would have been oft more promising than those with a half-wit like Daroch.
◊.◊.◊
I tie the maroon-coloured kerchief around my neck, taking a moment to admire my reflection. It is a distant memory now, but when I was a stripling, to my infinite chagrin, the growth of ginger fluff on my cheeks and chin seldom needed a razor. Today I see a clean-shaven man of twenty-five with piercing-blue eyes, a prominent nose, and chiselled jowl, with a twinkle in his eye. On my head I sit my Kilmarnock cap that is soft wool, dark blue with a red and white-diced band and red toorie. With a wide stance, I square my shoulders and push out my chest, then turn side on and hold my chin with my finger and thumb, striking a pose. Dressed in my highland regiment uniform, I consider my appearance rather dashing and noteworthy.
I am ready, worthy of impressing a particular young lady of nobility who I am to meet tonight; a young lady of the Catholic faith who hails from a respectable Scottish family.
I have already decided that I will marry her, if she accepts my proposal.
In the Great Hall, a long and well-dressed table of polished oak that is laden with mouth-watering fare awaits us — a feast, a grand dinner party that my mother has arranged. Before we take our seats, I am introduced to Fiona. It dawns on me that my mother arranged the entire night for our meeting each other, and am suddenly nervous.
The woman smiling at me makes an arresting image, and I am rendered speechless. Her golden red hair is held in place in elaborate fashion with a blue ribbon, and a long twist of hair rests elegantly on her shoulder. She is a picture of beauty. Her indigo eyes, deep, luminous and shining, turn up at me with bottomless female expectation. They search my face, while I try to compose myself and say something that will impress her. I decide to pay her a compliment in Gaelic. ‘M’ eudail, tha thu brèagha.’ My darling, you are beautiful.
Fiona is taken aback and I flinch. Such endearment should only be used when one has come to know a person. I kick myself for my idiotic comment. She takes a moment to digest my remark, then rewards me with a smile that takes my breath away. Withal, Fiona thanks me and offers her hand. Delighted, I lead her to her seat, touching her with tenderness I was not aware I possessed; all the while my insides are trembling. Fiona’s reaction to my touch makes me nervous, yet deliriously happy. I dare not show my felicity. My flustered inner self continues to fight with my outward calm. I wonder what she would think if she was aware of the ridiculous state I am struggling to keep in check. No doubt she would regard me the same way as Fenella did: as a lovesick fool. The risk is too great, for now anyhow, to show my excitement, so I ram my emotions down my throat.
Her sideways glance as she takes her seat gives me no sign of what she is thinking, painful as it is. The servants are at our side, ready to pass us platters of food that are out of our reach. They stay at our sides, ready to top up our glasses if need be.
◊.◊.◊
Our courtship is brief — twenty-two days — before Fiona accepts my hand in marriage. I can finally let lose my happiness; if I had carried on suppressing it as I did throughout our entire courtship, I imagine I would have burst an artery. My fiancée, I discover, has an infectious giggle, one that she breaks into, at things I say and do. No doubt this is because when she agreed to be my wife, I have been in a celebratory mood ever since, happy as a lark that I can at long last show her how delighted I am.
‘My wife,’ I say over and over, caressing her face, as if I need to say it to convince myself that she will soon belong to me.
That day finally comes. When the first squeal of bagpipes begins the wedding march, it jellies my nerves. On hearing gasps from wedding guests as my bride steps up the aisle, I want to turn and look, but with mammoth effort I keep my eyes straight ahead, staring at the priest. His expression is of great admiration. I feel a sudden pang of envy. I should be the first to see my bride in all her resplendent glory, not the last.
Before long, she is at my side. ‘Oh God,’ I say aloud, and turn crimson when the congregation erupts into gales of laughter. The priest obliges with a sense of humour, and also laughs along at my blasphemy. He opens his book and we begin. I am the happiest man alive.
Fiona and I turn to each other to recite the Caim. We each draw invisible circles around ourselves and repeat the prayer after the priest. ‘The Mighty Three, my protection be, encircle me. You are around my life, my home encircling me. Oh sacred Three, the Mighty Three.’ After we recite the Caim, my nerves settle, and I enjoy the rest of the ceremony.
Halfway into the evening’s festivities, my blood pressure rises again. The days leading up to the wedding brought about a new fear — our wedding night. Now that it is upon me, I am fretting. I need to perform. Since Fenella’s rebuke, I have lost all confidence in myself. I became detached from the fairer sex, and shied away from lassies looking for a husband. Before long it became a dilemma, and I found it impossible to talk to lassies at all, aside from my sisters.
So, for my twentieth birthday, Athair took me to a house of ill-repute, where he waited outside while I “found my manhood”. His words. Mortified as I was, it released me from my troublesome innocence. Although, when I think about it, I still have trifle knowledge of what to do. The “enlightenment” I recall, was mostly performed for me.
To ease my nerves, I take the presented glass of whisky and gulp it down. Before the tray moves away, I grab another. The second drink calms me, and I’m raring to go.
The hall explodes with music. Bagpipes and drummers with snare drums fixed at their hips play Scotland the Brave as the opening. The pipe band plays for hours, taking breaks at intervals; the Duke of Atholl’s Reel and the Montgomeries’ Rant among the introductory dances.
During one of these intervals, a relative of my wife’s who I have not met before, stands in the spot vacated by a piper and plays a panpipe to the tune of My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean. Guests sing along. At another interval, my new father-in-law bellows out the first verses to My Highland Lassie, O, and again, the guests take their cue to join in. Men fill their glasses and their lungs, and bark out the verses along with the lighter voices of their better halves.
Three ladies, namely, my new sisters-in-law, perform The Highland Fling in a brief dance, then Fiona surprises me and joins in for a second round, holding her bridal gown and veil in such a way to ensure it doesn’t trip her up.
The dance floor thrums with the feet of a packed hall of guests, who, over the night have become more footloose and fancy-free. Towards the end of the night, when the pipe band strikes up again with the Black Bear, everyone is falling over their feet and banging into each other as the groups weave the figure of eight. It is hilarious to watch. We celebrate into the wee hours.
◊.◊.◊
Despite Fiona forgiving me for my incompetence that night (owing to my inability to know which of the three Fionas in my vision I should lie beside), it knocked me back to square one. Now, as her husband, I once again am lacking in confidence and shy in her presence. I stumble over my words and blush a lot. I still don’t have the wherewithal, confidence or experience in lovemaking. Hence, I feel I cannot relate to her, and this worries me.
Although my wife’s outward appearance is dainty, she is resilient. Today she wears her golden-red hair loose with a pretty Celtic knot tied at the back of her head. She is in the vegetable garden, her gloved hands working the soil. Her shawl drops, exposing her waxen shoulders. Because she cannot pull it up, I go to her rescue. She rewards me with a gladsome smile and returns to her weeding.
How resilient I discovered her to be when she recited the story of how she nursed her two brothers, both army officers, who had been wounded in battles. On a day back in March, I found my Fiona crying in the orchard among the daffodils and bluebells, and had rushed to her aid.
My heart went out to my darling wife as she spoke through her tears. ‘I had to watch one of my brothers slowly decline, then pass away. His lower leg could not be saved; the doctors made the decision to amputate, and he developed an infection that passed through his body.’ It was the first time I had seen Fiona cry, and to see her vulnerability made me love her all the more.
‘Today would have been his twentieth birthday,’ she adds. ‘I shall miss him forever.’
This turning point in our marriage brought us closer together. I was smitten, and I’m sure she was just as smitten with me. Our honeymoon period lasted throughout the following year. When things cooled off and settled down into the normal rhythm and flow of a marriage, my timeworn fears came back to haunt me.
Today I harbour doubts about our relationship. I worry that one day she will become bored with my devoted adoration of her. I worry she will become annoyed with my “puppy-dog eyes” as she calls them. Some days, when we disagree over something, I feel unable to challenge her, and I know this maddens her.
After a few drams of whisky one night, she discloses something that upsets me greatly. I know it is the whisky talking. Howbeit, she discloses her true feelings.
‘I love you, Lachlan, but I would have preferred an older, more experienced man.’ When I am too shocked to reply, my darling wife who I think the world of, says something that knocks me sideways.
Fiona twists her wedding ring, her gaze focused on her hand. ‘You are not the first man I have lain with.’
Dismayed and humiliated, I leave the house and ride into the night, desperately trying to get away from my terrible mental images, fraught that on our wedding night my bride had not lost her innocence with me. It cuts deep. Also, she does not regard me as a properly matured man. A sense of loss grieves me, and my insecure feelings rush back like those of a demented dog.
◊.◊.◊
I busy myself in army training. I tell myself I need to carry on my duties as a husband. Fiona is an exemplary woman, and she will make an excellent mother.
◊.◊.◊
My wife of nineteen months bears me a son whom we name Fingal, after my Uncle Fingal, and twelve and a half months later a bonnie wee lassie we call Ceit, joins the family. Our little girl is the image of her mother with shining golden curls and big blue eyes. She is adorable. Fingal is also like his mother in looks and temperament. We love our children dearly.
◊.◊.◊
Over the next few years, my duties in the army take me away from home, and as a result, Fiona and I drift apart. She becomes more distant than I am to her. After much soul-searching, I take stock of the situation, and when awarded leave, I hastily return to my family, eager to spend every precious moment with Fiona and the children. Hopeful, too, that my relationship with my wife will rekindle.
This happens piecemeal, as much as I expected, since I am often absent with my army commitments. When my wife announces she is again with child, I am overjoyed. The following months of her pregnancy prove difficult, however, and Fiona’s health declines. Morag, the children’s nanny, a no-nonsense woman of middle years who keeps her grey-white hair coiled in a large hairnet somewhat like an Elizabethan caul, becomes concerned and sends for me. I am given compassionate leave and am at my wife’s side straightaway, telling her I will stay with her until the birth of our child.
◊.◊.◊
A sudden loud wail causes me to jump out of my skin, rousing me from a deep sleep. Fiona is sitting up in bed, clutching at her stomach.
‘It’s the bairn!’
‘It’s nae time!’ I argue, remembering that Dr. Brus had confirmed the baby’s due date, three weeks from now.
‘Tell that to the bairn!’ she screams. ‘Fetch the midwife!’
Fingal and Ceit sleep through the early morning commotion, although I am not sure how, because Fiona’s pained lamentations can be heard throughout the castle’s north wing. An angled sliver of sunshine slices through the narrow opening in the drapes, pooling at the patchwork coverlet, heralding dawn. Fiona’s agonising screams imply that she is in the last throes of labour.
Ceit whimpers and asks through sleepy eyes, ‘Why’s mammy greetin?’
‘Shhh hen,’ I whisper, stroking her hair, ‘Not long from now, ye will have a new brother or sister.’
Across the room, Fingal sits up in his bed, rubbing his eyes. ‘Daddy, is it true? Can I see him?’
I laugh. ‘It might be awhile yet, but what makes ye think yer mammy is having a laddie?’
‘Cos I dinnae want another sister,’ Fingal replies, scowling at Ceit. She throws her doll at him, which Fingal bats back at her, not wanting his sister’s homemade cloth doll anywhere near him.
Voices quieten in the master bedroom where my mother, Morag, and the midwife are attending to Fiona. After a while, the silence breaks with a frightening wail that causes the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. I race up the oil-lamp lit passageway.
I am met with Morag’s ashen face at the door. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr MacLean, the umbilical cord wound itself around the baby’s neck and the bairn suffocated.’
My wife sobs over the small-lifeless figure in her arms. My mother consoles her. Numb, I comfort my wife, whose tear-streaked face has turned pale.
Horrified, I watch as Fiona’s eyes roll back, as her body goes limp asudden. She lets the baby slip from her grasp. In a swift movement, I catch the bairn and stop it falling to the floor. It is bereft of life. I look at my wife, whose face is colourless, her lips blue. In my panicked state I look questioningly at the midwife.
‘I’m afraid, sir, she is hemorrhaging.’ The midwife turns her attention back to Fiona and orders Morag to fetch clean cloths and boiling water.
Morag touches my arm on her way out the door. ‘A wee lassie,’ she says, referring to the motionless bundle in my arms. I stifle a sob as I stare at the pallid little face, her long eyelashes making tiny shadows on her plump, doll-like cheeks — angelic in death.
Unaware of how long I have been gazing at my dead daughter, or been unaware of our two wide-eyed children standing in the doorway, the midwife’s rueful expression brings me to my senses, and then to my knees.
I gather up the children, pulling them into my embrace. Mháthair takes the baby from my crowded arms and prays at Fiona’s bedside.
The midwife cannot stop the bleeding. She eventually removes the poultice and hot towels, and places a clean sheet over my wife’s lower half. She meets my empty gaze, and expresses her sympathy by momentarily cupping my arm with her warm hand. She gives Mháthair a light hug then leaves the room, allowing the family to grieve.
The children cry for their mother, who now lies lifeless beside our stillborn infant. Mother and daughter, their souls travelling together into the unknown. As though I can visually see this happening, I drift to the window and look out, disconnected from my senses. As if my broken heart has influenced the weather, swollen-grey clouds heavy with rain move sluggishly across the sky and settle overhead. In a few moments, the morning brings forth a downpour, the torrential rain flooding the castle grounds within minutes.
It reflects our dolorous state.
◊.◊.◊
I continue to be grief-stricken over the forthcoming years, for I had grown to love my darling Fiona a great deal.
◊.◊.◊
To hell with the Sassenach. It is a sentiment that has become part of the soul of a Scotsman,ingrained in him since the Jacobite rising of 1745; known simply as the Forty-Five. As a six-year-old I was unaware of Prince Charles’s failed effort to restore the House of Stuart to the British throne, and the later decimating of our clan system and highlander way of life. But as I grew older, I learnt of Great Britain’s tyranny over Scotland, and we, as highlanders, were duty-bound to see to it that one day our country would again be ours alone. At thirty-two, and as owner of my late father’s castle and the estate’s twenty-thousand acres of land, I have become increasingly incensed by the bloody fiasco that took place and led to Britain’s dictatorship over the land of the Scotsman.
◊.◊.◊
I have been having trials and tribulations with the English soldiers who recently set foot in our country with injurious intentions. As Laird of MacLean Castle, I am responsible for tenants and staff who live and work in the fields of my estate. The badgering of our good men and women has caused much heartache among the families of my cottars, and I feel it is my duty to protect them as much as I can.
I consider myself a compassionate laird, unlike a neighbouring English landowner who not only demands that his tenants pay extortionate taxes, but exploits the tenants’ crops as well. Treated more like slaves, the cottars work six days a week. The laird still expects them to hand over eighty per cent of their harvest. They are forbidden to hunt wild game on his estate apart from rabbits. And if they do not heed to his restrictions, the laird tries the accused tenant in an English court. The unfortunate cottar then faces hanging as his punishment.
◊.◊.◊
The former owner of this property was a friend of my father’s, but he lost his estate to the British Establishment after the Jacobite Rising. He now works for me, and since he was a good friend of my father’s, I granted him and his gracious wife MacLean Cottage, a roomy thatched-roof house on my estate with views of the loch and the hinterland.
A spike of anger pricks me when I think about the vexatious English, and I touch the dirk I keep strapped to me at all times. Wearing it has become a habit, insurance against an unlikely hostile event. Still, if one happens, I will be willing and ready.
◊.◊.◊
I ponder the day’s agenda, and stroke the corners of my mouth with a faint rasping sound, reminding me I need to shave. When I do I notice grey stubble brindled among the ginger. It bothers me. Though, when I muse over it, I am around the same age as Athair when he turned grey. Although my hair is receding and my temples are also dappled with grey, the mirror affords a distinguished reflection.
Dressed in battle attire, my sword is in its sheath and attached to the saddle. Also tied to my saddle is a sheep’s horn, a keepsake that my grandsire passed down to my father, and my father down to me, for luck. Before this afternoon’s meeting with a group of lords, I go for a ride.
With a quick flick of the reins, my horse advances into a gallop, and we speed across the moors and around the boundaries of my estate. It is a good way of dealing with the strain of recent days. As I head back, again I flick the reins, knowing that the lords will likely be waiting for me in the great hall.
Many of our lords have had considerable trouble with the English soldiers. The unrest has made them nervous; they worry that King George will take their titles and lands from them if they rise up against the British government. I am determined that law and order in our country be restored to former years, and I will do all I can to make this happen.
Lord Aleck McAdam and Lord Erroll Ross have come, I see — their horses are tied to the hitching post. As good friends, I am always glad to see them. Aleck and Erroll have been my friends since the three of us were pimpled young lads. Erroll, not a handsome fellow, but a canny one, who carries himself with an air of aplomb, is long in the face, has small-dark eyes set above a long nose, scaly-thin-pink lips and a receding chin. Like me, he wears a Kilmarnock, his longish dusky hair hiding his ears. Aleck, a man with a droll sense of humour, on the other hand is square-faced with a deep brow, with coppery-brown hair, gun-metal eyes and a strong nose. A bushy, coppery brown moustache covers the upper half of a substantial mouth. The two men do not carry the haughtiness that is typical among men of the gentry. Well-bred and wealthy, with incomes more than double the national medium; greater than a number of men who sit here today, they are plainspoken and down-to-earth, and I welcome their company.
I thank the men for attending, and we get down to the business of discussing how we should deal with the British intrusion. As one can imagine, it infuriates all of us. But if we want a favourable outcome, we need to make a rational decision. I suggest to our group of lords that we formulate a plan.
The rest of the afternoon is taken up by those who have come here with an already angered disposition who find it necessary to remonstrate on anything put forward. With nothing tangible occurring, and with tension mounting, I put forth a motion that the meeting ends. Disgruntled, the lords grumble their way out of the great hall and mount their horses. Erroll and Aleck stay back to enjoy a dram of whisky with me.
◊.◊.◊
Gossip among the house staff, that a particular English soldier has been bothering the wife of one of my cottars, has come to my attention. I intend to make sure this pathetic wretch is stopped from plaguing the poor lady. Word prevails that his unwanted attention is growing. Mr Muir, a mild-mannered tenant farmer on my estate, stepped in and politely warded him off, not wanting to upset the man, aware of how contentious English soldiers can become.
His wife, Mrs Muir, a quiet mousy woman, has become fearful and taken to staying put inside the house, locking doors and latching windows while her husband tends the fields. I hear she has developed a rash from worry. I rue the day the British batrachians first set foot in our country.
Now, a few weeks on from the soldier’s intimidating visits, it appears things have quietened down. Regardless, I continue to look after the interests of my farm workers, as they do mine.
◊.◊.◊
In the distance, people amble across the twin-arched stone bridge, carrying their wares at their waists, a number of folk pushing carts with sacks plump with flour. I shift my attention beyond the townsfolk, to families working in the fields, their many children playing nearby in the autumnal sun. The scene brings warmth to my mood.
◊.◊.◊
Tonight, I will enjoy myself when I ride the three-mile journey into town, where at the alehouse I will meet up with local friends. It is not the cleanest place, nor is it the most reputable. The alehouse is really no more than a tippling hut, where sex and drink are on the menu. There are men with dogs at their feet, and brògan draped across their laps, who drink against the clock, packed into the sweaty dive until they are spat out on the pavement at 10 p.m., but it is a bloody good place to unwind.
To my surprise, I see Cailean and Tavish, army mates I have not seen for more than a year, sitting in my usual spot. The rangy and thin frame of sandy-haired Tavish, whose face is sunburnt and peeling, pales in comparison to Cailean’s frame — a man of muscular build and shaggy rust-coloured hair who would blend in nicely with a herd of highland cattle. As soon as they see me, they beckon me over, and after vigorous handshaking and backslapping, we get down to serious drinking. They inform me they have just come from a skirmish in the south.
‘Dirty British bastards,’ Tavish curses, ‘the king can shove his soldiers up his arse.’
‘I dinnae ken, A hear his arse is pretty tight,’ I reply and we laugh.
For a time I am quiet, reflecting on recent events. I take another swig of my whisky and place the glass back on the slatted table, positioning it just so. ‘They see we Scots as brutes, but there’s been noxious behaviour by some of the soldiers towards wives of my cottars. Withal, I am keeping a close eye on them.’
Cailean slaps his hand on the table. ‘Bastards! Let us know if you need a hand.’
‘Thanks. I think I’ll be able to manage, even if I have to take on those scrawny Sassenach batrachians myself.’ My comrades nod and grin their approval and refill my whisky glass. We change the subject, having said enough about the English.
I propose a toast. ‘Here’s to us.’ We clink glasses and swig.
My horse takes me home, as my head lolls from side to side in time with the horse’s gait. Unable to stay upright, my hands slip from the reins and I collapse forward, the sudden contact of my face on the horse’s bony neck jolting me awake. I grasp at its neck, wrapping my arms around it in a death grip. Once my mare stops at my door, I slide off the saddle, stumbling to catch my fall. The stable-hand sees my sloppy movements and hurries over to take the reins, leading my horse back to her stable.
My sweet-natured Effie, a slight girl with dainty feet, is waiting for me with a steaming plate of mutton stew that I gladly tuck into. The love of my life has round-blue eyes the colour of a robin’s egg, that cast me deadpan stares through round spectacles when I tease her about her pink button of a nose and her copper-coloured freckles. Her shoulder-length hair, the colour of wheat bread, is thin and soft, which she complains is bothersome to keep tidy. My Effie parts and combs it flat, and fixes it at the back with hairpins and comb.
◊.◊.◊
Effie and I met at the alehouse a few years earlier when she worked there as a serving lass, and our friendship developed over mutual grief, whereupon I fell in love with her. Effie has the biggest heart. She spent many hours consoling me over the loss of my dear Fiona when her own husband deserted her and left her with a wee child to take care of. As the friendship strengthened between Effie and me, she grew to love me as I did her, a mutual love that flourished, and formed a bond that veritably became more honest than that of my marriage to Fiona.
A cottage on the estate became empty when its last owner, an elderly widower, died, so I asked Effie if she and her adolescent son would like to live there, make it nice and regard it as her own, rent-free. Howbeit, because of the class disparity between us, I am forced keep our relationship under wraps, however much this irks me. If it becomes known, others will look upon it as a dirty-little secret. Instead of being annoyed, I should feel culpable, but I do not. My love for Effie quashes any guilt.
◊.◊.◊
I rip apart the fluffy-warm bread, and using the bread as a scoop, devour the steaming mutton stew. In a few minutes, Effie brings out a plate of apple dumplings, the air a welcome aroma of cinnamon spice. She then sits beside me and picks up her fork. Apart from the sounds of eating, we dine in silence.
‘I have to go away for a while,’ I say finally, sobering up. Effie puts her fork down, gets up and walks over to the window. She stands with her hands resting on the deep stone embrasure, staring at a sickle moon. Her composure is meditative. She is not fond of my journeys abroad in view of the trouble in recent times. When she turns to face me her pallor is leaden.
‘My pet, on the recommendations of the lords, because of the present disposition of the British establishment, I must take the matter to the House of Lords, in England.’
Effie bursts into tears. ‘Please, Lachlan, no; my heart cannot brave your absence again, above all, to the lands of the Sassenach.’
I lift her head, cupping her face. ‘My sweetheart, I will return in one piece, I promise you that.’
All through the night we sleep embraced; my thumb wiping away her silent tears. Early next morning, I ride the long journey to the House of Lords.
◊.◊.◊
Lord North, an older gentleman wearing an off-white wig powdered with finely ground starch, who has an austere, orange-peel face and fleshy bags under his eyes, lifts his chin at me. ‘That is a preposterous idea.’
I have no patience for pompous, self-righteous parliamentarians, but I grit my teeth. I know I need to stay calm; I do not want to fall afoul of the expected conduct of the House.
Irritated, I stand my ground. ‘Sir, there is unbridled lawlessness among your soldiers. I ask that someone of rank oversees them.’ Silence pervades the room.
Lord North does not concede, and the House dismisses me. I realise I will need to take matters into my own hands, should they arise.
◊.◊.◊
Chance would have it that I am in the gardens when I hear a terrific screaming coming from the cottage of Mr and Mrs Alistaire Muir. I instinctively know what is happening. Furious, I grab my dirk and run across two fields to the cottage. I find poor Mrs Muir hysterical and underneath the sweaty weight of a British soldier who is forcing himself upon her. My anger cannot stop me from what I do next.
I impulsively I grab the soldier by the scruff of his neck and haul him off her. With horror, the soldier looks into the eyes of a deranged man when I plunge my sword deep into his abdomen in one precise, slick movement. The withdrawal of my sword from his fleshy innards makes a wet sshhluck sound. Repulsed, I shove him to the floor, my vision blurred by the venom within me. The man collapses, screaming like a girl, his genitals exposed and covered in blood. Mr Muir bursts through the door and sweeps his wife into his arms, the latter crying uncontrollably.
With grim determination, I stride over to the stables, saddle my mare, and return to the cottage. The soldier lies in his blood, struggling to breathe. Terrified eyes look up at me, his face drained of colour, an arm across his chest in weak effort to thwart any more of my malice. He is only minutes from death, and I wait.
With the help of Alistaire, I sling the Englishman’s body over the saddle, mount my horse and gallop towards the dense forest, a short distance from the castle. After traipsing deep into the bush, I find the perfect spot. My mouth curls in disgust as I heave the body off the horse, and it lands with a thud in a thicket of brambles that nearly engulf it. Satisfied that it is far enough in to make the corpse difficult to locate, and hoping that the animals will find it before the Sassenach do, I turn and make my way back, checking on the Muirs before I wash down my mare.
Mrs Muir has already cleaned the bloodied floor and comes outside to help her husband finish burning the bedclothes. Despite her terrible shock, she offers to make us a cup of tea. Mr Muir throws the last of the linen into the fire, then takes his wife by the arm and sits her on the porch seat. ‘I will make the tea, my love.’ He fetches a blanket and places it over his wife’s knees; his hands are still trembling.
◊.◊.◊
I know I am now in danger from the English, but I need to protect my tenants at all costs. It is what I consider a responsible, self-respecting laird should do. I do not dwell on the ramifications of what could happen if I am caught.
Officers patrolling the county do not realise that one of their men is missing, and several weeks go by before they do. They carry out a search of the entire region, but thankfully do not find the soldier’s body.
Several weeks later; however, one of the regiment soldiers remembers that their missing man was going to go back to my estate because he fancied a farmer’s wife. The English soldiers turn up unannounced at the Muir cottage and interrogate Mr Muir at length. After a few hours, things turn ugly when they torture him. On hearing Alistaire’s low tormented growl and the frantic cries of his wife, I am at their doorstep within a minute.
It doesn’t discourage me that there are three of them; I step in and break up the affair. Now delirious with rage, I swing wildly at the officers, getting in a few solid punches, breaking an eye socket. A blow to my stomach puts a stop to it — one that causes me to double over in pain.
‘Miserable fucks!’ I swear at them as I clutch my middle
‘Did you hear that, Jim?’ the soldier says to his comrade.
‘Yeah,’ he answers. ‘We’ll see which one of us is the miserable fuck once the Crown carves him up.’
I try to fight them off, but they force my arms behind me, binding my wrists with rope, and push me out of the door.
◊.◊.◊
In the Old Bailey, England, on this fifth day of July 1771, I am tried for murder. The bailiff leads me to the dock, shackled, whereby I am to stand in front of the Grand Jury. Above me sitting at the bench is the lord mayor, recorder, common sergeant, and aldermen of the City of London wearing ridiculously voluminous and long white wigs. They regard me with narrowed eyes and satirical expressions.
◊.◊.◊
The council for the Crown stands up and addresses the courtroom. ‘May it please your Lordship. Gentlemen of the Jury. I am likewise of Council in this prosecution. The City of London charges one Mr Lachlan Ferguson MacLean for the murder of one Mr Aldrich Bryceton Everleigh. The charge has been read to you, and it is scarcely necessary for me to say that it amounts to no less than the deliberate and malignant taking of the life of Mr Everleigh, a Grenadier of the 40th Regiment of Foot, a soldier under the jurisdiction of His Majesty, King George the Third.’
Once the charge is repeated to me, I am asked to enter a plea. The lord mayor, a man in his seventies with an oversized head and a flaccid-moist lower lip, looks at me sardonically. ‘What say you?’
‘Guilty, your honour.’
My court-appointed solicitor jumps up. A young man, small in build who appears as though he has barely completed his pupillage from the Inns of Court. His profile is one of a sharp nose and bucked teeth. Beads of sweat form on his protruding upper lip. He too wears a wig, howbeit short and curled at the sides that sits at the tip of his ears. ‘In Mr MacLean’s defense, your honour, my client executed the soldier on the grounds that the soldier was assaulting and attempting to defile Mrs Alistaire Muir. Mrs Muir is the wife of Mr Alistaire Fynn Muir, a tenant farmer on Mr MacLean’s estate, your honour,’ he adds.
◊.◊.◊
The day is long. I stand in the dock with aching feet. My lawyer putting forth to the English court that the soldier was trying to rape poor Mrs Muir holds no ground in the jury’s deliberations.
My sentence is death by execution. I hang my head in acceptance, though empty is my soul.
◊.◊.◊
The jailers lead me to a freezing and rancid cell. I sit on the cold stone floor with my legs shackled, thinking about my life. About Effie. About the type of execution that awaits me.
If I am gibbeted, I will be hung in chains, thirty feet in the air, and left to die of exposure and starvation. Or I will be hanged and my body will be cut and spread open, and my internal organs collected and used for medical training. If this is to happen, my corpse will be carted off to anatomy rooms where it will be dissected by groups of medical trainees, until there is all but nothing left.
If my punishment is hanging, it involves not only a hanging, but an execution meted out as if it were an art form. Seasoned hangmen carry out their executions in such a way that the condemned are alive for as long as possible, drawing out the suffering for the longest time possible, purely for public entertainment. The hanged men are often still alive when their organs spill out, they are disembowelled and their privates hacked off. There is a special skill required and expected of the executioner. Severed last are the arteries so the heart is still beating when it is purged. The executioner holds the heart up, trophy-like, in front of the people gathered to watch. The vicious public display ends with a beheading and the victim’s body is then cut into several pieces. No, it is not just a hanging. It is a hanging, drawing and quartering; a gory public display of mutilation.
The almost theatrical performance pleases the crowd. The body, dismembered and cut into four pieces, also serves as a warning to others of their fate if they intend to carry out a similar act, such as defending themselves against the unmerciful British government that has taken over our country.
Day of Execution
Although I wrote and told her not to come, my darling Effie is among the crowds of people who are here to witness my execution. I know this because I can hear her loud keening. Fittingly, thunderous-black clouds close in and move overhead like a demonic, insidious blanket of doom.
Fear grips me asudden when they place the noose around my neck. I thought I could keep my emotions in check, but my trembling body tells me otherwise. Mirth from the crowd, I realise, is because they can plainly see the wet warmth I suddenly feel running down my pants.
Having never had any religious teachings, I do not know how to pray. Albeit a weak substitute, I cry, ‘Please God, save my soul!’
The crowd quietens. I listen to the shuffling of feet and my dear Effie, who is still crying out my name. I call out to her in my head, telling her I am sorry. So … very … sorry.
Terror rips through me as I hear the creak of the lever that opens the trapdoor. I let out a terrified whisper. ‘Please get this over with!’
I drop like a stone and the noose tightens at once, constricting my airways. As I suspected but hoped like hell would not be the case, my neck does not instantly snap, nor does the noose strangle me to death. I gasp for air. The blockage of blood flow causes my head to violently throb while my heart does its damnedest to pump oxygen to my brain.
The tiny blood vessels in my face rupture, making my face feel like it is on fire. Effie lets out a chilling scream when she witnesses my eyes pop from the pressure.
The executioner manhandles me, ripping open my shirt for what is about to come: a grisly exhibition. The spectators become animated. I feel the sting of a knife tip, a shallow cut, teasingly held at the base of my breastbone. Following the arch of my ribs, the executioner then viciously slices through my layers of fat and muscle in one swift movement, being careful not to puncture the membrane that holds in my intestines. His purging hands go deep inside me, wrapping around my intestines’ filmy sheath and wrenching it out, disembowelling me. Beneath me a fire is lit for this purpose — my guts fall into it. The acrid smell of my burning entrails, a metallic stench, reaches my nostrils.
Death does not come soon enough; I vomit as the executioner goes in for the gory finale. His hand burrows under my ribcage to my still beating heart, and rips it out. He then holds up his prize in front of the cheering, manic crowd.
◊.◊.◊
The all-consuming, searing pain lasts for many … long … minutes. Yet despite my dying state, I can still make out Effie’s heart-wrenching wails. Her uncontrollable sobbing is the last thing I hear as I fade away.
◊.◊.◊
An invisible force envelops me. I float above the grim scene, released of pain and filled with love for my Effie, joyful in the knowledge that we will one day be together again, in a future existence.
