by Jane Yolen
I gave a sharp snort of laughter. Imagine saying that a sheep was worth more than a man. “We’ll keep them safe,” I answered him, “safer than ye’ll be if ye follow us.”
Lachlan laughed, but Da frowned at me. “Dinna let yer tongue keep running away,” he warned. “There’s nae sense in stirring up more trouble than there’s need for.”
He was right, of course. I must have still had the Rogue’s spirit in me. Or that terrier.
“Aye, ye dinna know what ill will might come back to haunt ye later,” added Tam. As he spoke, a sudden wind whistled down the valley, spooking the sheep. They ran about in frantic circles, their black faces all alike, blank and white-eyed, bleating in chorus. I should have taken it as a warning.
But in my heart I couldn’t regret my words. Already this felt like a victory: the English shepherds who were trying to take the land from us had been reduced to a cowering band of helpless watchers.
The sheep milled about like bugs under a tipped-over rock, running about without reason. But sheep are like that. Any little thing can spook them. Some men are like that too, I have come to learn.
Then the wind left as quickly as it had arrived, and we rounded up the sheep once again, driving them northward, leaving the shepherds behind us to snarl and sputter in frustration, more like dogs than the dogs themselves. There were additional flocks farther up the glen and we gathered them up as well, too many for counting. We were an army now, marching against the laird, who thought less of us than the sheep we were driving to his yard.
10 A DEAL
Eventually the Lodge came into view on our left, and I thought about all I had seen inside it—the pictures and the soft cushions on chairs, the rooms opening up one after another. I was suddenly struck with how rich it all seemed.
The Glendoun folk who had taken refuge there waved at us from the yard and cried out cheers. We called back to let them know what we were about, and some of the men joined us in our herding. Lachlan looked about for Laughing Johnny or Big Dune and especially for the beautiful Fiona, but none of them were there.
Coming out the front door, Bonnie Josie peered curiously at us. I might have heard her laugh, but I wasn’t sure. It was hard to hear anything over the bleating sheep, upset at having left their grazing land, and the cheers of the Glendoun folk.
I wanted to go up and talk to Josie, but Da would surely have disapproved, reminding me that I needed to behave like a man who was about serious business, not a boy playing a game.
Then the widow appeared at her daughter’s shoulder, shook her head and retired indoors, as if afraid of an approaching storm. And perhaps she was right to do so. For we were gathering like bad weather over the mountains and bringing it down on the laird’s head. Bleating bad weather and a storm of white sheep.
As we neared Kindarry, some of the laird’s men stepped into our path and made a feeble effort to block our way. But the sheep surged around them, as sheep will, and as the men tried to struggle toward us, they looked like swimmers floundering in a fast river. Eventually they gave up, shaking their fists and falling back, till they were driven right to the door of the laird’s grand house.
The house itself, with its high tower and steep grey walls and many open windows, looked astonished by this invasion, a gentleman set upon by a gang of raggedy beggars.
I could see servants at the lower windows pointing their fingers. One young maid—perhaps she was Annie Dayton, who’d given Rood such a hard time—held her hand over her mouth, as if trying to muffle her laughter.
In an upstairs window, a pair of shutters was suddenly thrown open and a pale face peeped out. He must have thought it had snowed in the night, for the grounds about Kindarry House were now covered with white sheep.
“Look!” Lachlan cried, pointing. “It’s the laird.”
We greeted him with a raucous cheer. But Da cut us short with a reminder. “We are doing this politely, lads. Honey, no vinegar.”
All at once, Willie Rood appeared around the side of the house, his face flushed, cudgel in hand. His beady eyes swiveled from side to side and he stepped warily, as if all these sheep might really be wolves in disguise.
“What’s this?” he spluttered. “Thievery?”
There was a sound like thunder, and it took me a moment before I realized it was our laughter echoing off the hills.
Da stepped forward. “Only honest men would come and stand before ye like this. Bringing the sheep back is no stealing.” His voice raised well above the bleating sheep.
That’s when the laird called down at last. “The world is corrupted indeed if you are what pass for honest men.” He glared at us. “Get rid of them, Rood.”
Rood looked from us to his master, then back again, his feet shuffling as if he didn’t rightly know how to proceed. We were too many for him. At heart, I guessed, he was a coward. He shook his cudgel. Suddenly a large ewe barged into him and he was knocked off balance.
It was so funny, I began to laugh, and Lachlan after me. The laughter spread throughout our men.
Rood began to tremble with anger. He hated to be made mock of. “Return to yer villages!” he commanded, though there was little conviction in his voice. “Leave the bloody sheep in the pen over there.” He pointed to a large enclosure across the road and some hundred yards from the house. “We’ll settle this business at a later date.”
“We’ll settle it now,” Da said firmly.
Tam MacBride took a step forward and raised his hand toward the laird in the window. “We offer ye a choice between sheep and men,” he shouted up to the laird. His black beard waggled fiercely, and he did all but shake his fist at the window, which had not been our plan at all. Soft talk and cozening was what we were to do. We were to be polite. But it was clear matters had gone too far, and Tam no longer remembered the plan. “If ye have any care left for the men of your clan, who supported the McRoys for as long as they held the land, give us back our animals that ye have penned up. Give us back our livelihood.”
In answer, the sheep began to baa again and stamp their feet restlessly.
“This is an outrage!” the laird spluttered. “I’ll not be spoken to like that in my own home. Be off or I’ll call out the militia and have you all dragged off to gaol at Fort William.”
“The sheep too?” someone called out, to a chorus of chuckles.
The laird narrowed his eyes. Then he leaned out the window, and his voice dropped threateningly. “You’ll not laugh when there’s a musket in your face and you stand before the gallows!”
That shut us up, though not the sheep.
After a long moment, Da spoke up again, his voice sweeter than Tam’s. “We’ve no come here to do harm. All we ask for is what is just.”
“The law will decide that, Macallan,” spat Willie Rood, waving his cudgel again. For all his loud talk, though, he kept his distance.
“Well,” said a light, cheerful voice, “it’s a long while since the Kindarry men came to pay their respects to their laird like this.”
I turned and saw Josie on her horse. She’d set out so quickly, she was without a saddle and sitting a-straddle. Her beaming face was in sharp contrast to the menacing mood hanging over us. As she moved toward us, the sheep opened up a path for her.
“Respect is the last thing on their minds,” her uncle shouted at her from his window.
Josie’s horse moved a step backward as if the laird’s loud voice startled him, but she kept her seat, even though one ram leapt up and knocked into another. Calmly, Josie answered, “If I understand rightly, Uncle, these sheep have been brought here as a service.”
Rood rounded on her sharply, hardly disguising his malice. “What are ye talking about?”
This time the horse moved forward, crowding into Rood, who was forced to step aside, right against a huge black-faced ewe. There was a ripple of laughter from all of us at that. His cheeks and nose turned a bright red.
“Well,” said Josie innocently, “it’s my understanding that the
sheep wandered from their pastures and strayed onto the farmland of these people, causing great damage to their crops.”
I looked at Lachlan, who looked at Da, who turned and stared, astonished, at Josie. Josie winked at him.
“Nobody’s said that,” said the laird.
“Not yet,” said Josie, turning back and smiling at him. “You didn’t give them time, Uncle. But there’s enough men here that, if they all swore to it, you’d be hard put to deny them.”
The laird quirked an eyebrow. “Oh, would I?”
“Especially,” she said, waving her hand at all of us, “as the good people of your clan have done you the great kindness of bringing the lost sheep here to you.”
“You’ll not spite me with a lie,” called down the laird.
This time Josie’s horse stood its ground and the sheep stopped moving about as well.
“It’s no lie if enough people swear it’s true.” Josie turned again on the horse’s back and looked at us. At me.
“That’s right,” I called out. “I’ll swear to it. Why, the sheep were all over our fields, rooting up the potatoes and chewing the barley. Is that no right, Da?”
Da hesitated. He never liked to tell a lie. He thought it against God’s express word. “I suppose it might be said,” he murmured, just loud enough to be heard.
“It’s a scandal!” old Fergus cried out. “Those beasts running wild all over. If the shepherds canna control them, the woolly invaders should be driven off.”
“Aye, there’s nae place for them in our gardens,” Colin added.
More voices rose, a hubbub of agreement. The sheep answered back. For a moment it looked as if chaos would overcome us.
Then Josie raised her hand for silence. It was as if she’d cut off the noise with a knife. Only the horse made a sound, a soft blubbing with its lips. And a couple of lambs bleated plaintively.
“I’m sure nobody here wants to drag this business before a magistrate,” she said. “Isn’t that right, Uncle?”
“This is an outrage!” the laird fumed. “You’ve stirred up twice the trouble there was before you came, young lady.”
“Not at all,” Josie answered him mildly. “I’ve come to bring harmony. After all, Uncle, what do you want but to see these sheep safely grazing while you collect your profit from their owners? And what do these good people here want other than to work their land in peace?”
He growled so loudly at that, we could all hear him. Then he shouted down, “It’s not their land; it’s mine.”
“Common law says that when they have given service to their laird when asked, it is their land as long as they farm it, Uncle.” Behind her, we all stirred but kept silent. Even the sheep.
“And what is your point?”
She smiled sweetly up at him. “Oh, Uncle, I am so glad you asked. My point is simple. Take the sheep and give these people back their cattle. Then no one is the loser.”
The laird’s eyes flitted from Josie to the clansmen to the sheep and back to Josie again. Clearly, he was weighing up where his advantage lay, whether he should hold a strong line against us and possibly start a riot that could ruin his house and grounds. Or he could give way now and bide his time. He probably guessed we had enough of the spirit of our forefathers that we could easily turn this into a fight. Indeed, I could hear the murmurs urging such a thing all around me. Colin was once again saying something about a good day for a battle, and even Da was agreeing. There was no doubt that the numbers were on our side. The murmurs grew louder till I was sure they could be heard up at the laird’s window. The skin on the hindquarters of Josie’s horse seemed to ripple as if the horse knew what might happen too.
At last an oily smile spread across the laird’s pasty face. “There’s no call for all this rancor,” he said. “At root we’ve all the same interests at heart, whatever harsh words might have been spoken.”
“So,” said Josie, “do you agree, Uncle, to a fair exchange to end this trouble?”
“I’ve never sought trouble,” he answered smoothly. “All I want is to ensure the future of the estate.”
“Then release these people’s livestock,” said Josie, “and let’s all part as friends.”
“Friends,” he echoed with a thin, humorless smile. A smile that I distrusted. “Yes, a man can never have too many friends. Especially at home. Mister Rood, release those beasts.”
Willie Rood’s face looked like a pigskin pumped full of blood and ready to burst. It was easy to guess his thoughts. He wanted to lash out and hurt somebody, but his cowardly nature held him back, as well as the laird’s orders. So he ground his teeth as fiercely as if chewing on a bone. Then he walked over the road to the enclosure where our animals were penned and opened the gate.
Our cow Nettle was the first out, followed by a motley assortment of skinny cattle, straggly Highland sheep, and bony goats, none of them as well fed or cared for as the black-faced sheep we’d brought back to the laird. We walked over to meet them, grinning broadly, as if greeting long lost relations.
“Keep those animals clear of the garden!” Rood bellowed.
For a moment I didn’t know if he meant us or the livestock. Then I saw one of the Cheviots butt open the gate of the laird’s rose arbor. A servant hurried to shoo it away and it backed off, bleating indignantly.
“See that these sheep are returned to Glendoun,” the laird commanded his men. Then he turned a thin smile down on Josie. “I guarantee you they will not stray again.”
His word held more than a hint of menace, and it was as if a cloud passed over Josie’s face. But she quickly shook it off and beamed back at the laird. If I was to guess, I think she was delighted to have beaten her uncle. But I also think she wanted to encourage us Highland folk, who had also caught the threatening edge of his words. Then she hauled on her horse’s mane to make it back up.
“Come, lads!” Da called over the sound of the animals. “Let’s take our beasts home.”
Lachlan and I went to either side of Nettle, a hand each on her flanks. I gave her an encouraging pat and Lachlan clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth to get her moving. Nothing could spoil the triumph of the moment. Not Rood’s stormy face nor the laird’s bitter commands.
As we herded our animals down the road, Tam broke into “The Hielandmen Cam Doon the Hill,” and we joined him in uproarious chorus. The sun was already lying easily on the top of the mountains, streaking the sky with oranges and reds. Laughter filled the air, of men content with themselves and what they had achieved.
“Aye, we showed him,” Lachlan said to me. “Him and his dirty man, Rood.”
“Aye, we did,” I said, laughing. I turned to look back at the rooftop of Kindarry House slipping out of sight. I was not such a child to think there would be no consequences of the day. But it was a win for now, no doubt.
Da called to the others as we drove our animals along. “Well done, lads. He knows now we mean business.” His voice sounded light and happy.
Still, I guessed the insult would rankle in the laird’s dark heart. Sooner or later he would strike back. Rood too would not soon forgive our mockery. But would it be at Josie they would hurl their anger or at us clansfolk? I could not take the measure of it, so I put it out of mind as we walked the way home.
11 FEAST
That night, in a meadow on the south side of the village, we celebrated as our clansmen did after a battle, whether in victory or merely survival. It being late spring, the nights were long and grey-white instead of black. Cushie doos called from the low branches, a soft cooing. A small wind, soft and warm, promised that summer would come soon.
Da, along with some of the other men, had slaughtered a cow that was mostly past milking age, and it was roasting merrily over a bonfire. The meat was passed around with slices of crusty bread to dab in the gravy, and every villager got a share. Lachlan and I ate up hungrily. I decided battle is hard work, even if it is only a battle of words. Besides, it had been some time since I had had
beef, and the gravy dripped down my chin. I wiped it off with a finger and sucked that finger dry.
Angus McDonnell played his fiddle, and his son was on the small pipes. And if they were not entirely in tune, we were used to them. They made such a racket, the night birds were silent.
“Going up against the laird was worth it for this,” Lachlan said, grinning and wiping the grease from his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he gestured to the feast, which took in the music and everything else.
“When did we last eat this well?” I asked through a mouthful of bread.
Lachlan shrugged. Running a crust of the bread around the edge of his wooden bowl, he soaked up the last few drops of gravy. “Maybe we’ll do it more often from now on.” He popped the bread into his mouth. Lachlan is not a quiet eater. But then, neither am I. “As long as the laird leaves us in peace,” he added.
Yet I could not believe that would happen. The laird and Rood were a pair that would pick a scab until it bled.
All around us everyone else seemed just as cheery. And loud. Who could blame them? The meat was rich, the ale was flowing freely. And after years of scraping a bare living off borrowed land, as well as dodging trouble from the laird and the magistrates, we’d finally grabbed hold of our own fates. I think it was that as much as the ale that made everyone so merry.
I watched as the singing and dancing progressed. Even Da and Ishbel had joined in the reels, careless as bairns. Ishbel had a look on her face I rarely had seen. She was smiling dreamily and dancing like a lassie with the wind at her heels. Not me. I have two left feet and always make a fool of myself at dances, so I rarely kick up my heels.
Just then Angus and his wife began a jig so wild, they ended up bashing their heads together and falling to the ground on their backsides. The whole village started laughing, a great rumbling sound that echoed off the hills. First Angus and then his wife joined in the laugh, even as they rubbed their aching skulls.