Standing Stones
Page 1
Standing Stones
Book 1: The McDonnell Clan
by Beth Camp
Copyright © 2014 Beth Camp
All rights reserved.
Cover designed by Angie Zambrano
DEDICATION
For Allen,
Rachel, Nick, Leda, and Ruthie.
Always.
ALSO BY BETH CAMP
Available on Amazon
and Kindle Unlimited
Standing Stones, Book 1, The McDonnell Clan
Years of Stone, Book 2, The McDonnell Clan
Rivers of Stone, Book 3, The McDonnell Clan
A Mermaid Quilt & Other Tales
Table of Contents
BOOK 1: FOULKSAY ISLAND
Chapter 1: Foulksay Island
Chapter 2: Bottle Bay
Chapter 3: Westness
Chapter 4: A Crofter’s Cottage
Chapter 5: Westness
Chapter 6: Stromness
Chapter 7: Beltane
Chapter 8: The Herring Run
Chapter 9: Deidre
Chapter 10: End of the Harvest
Chapter 11: Moira
Chapter 12: The McDonnell Cottage
Chapter 13: The Pig’s Head
BOOK 2: WESTNESS
Chapter 14: Standing Stones
Chapter 15: Scott’s Mercantile
Chapter 16: Lammas
Chapter 17: After Lammas
Chapter 18: Moira at Westness
Chapter 19: Fishermen Meet
Chapter 20: Westness
Chapter 21: Gordon and Alice
Chapter 22: The Storm
Chapter 23: Mac Cleans the Star
Chapter 24: Granny Connor
Chapter 25: Moira and Dylan
Chapter 26: The McDonnell Cottage
Chapter 27: The Marrying
BOOK 3: THE CLEARANCES
Chapter 28: Alice
Chapter 29: The Sheep
Chapter 30: Granny Connor
Chapter 31: Westness
Chapter 32: Quernshead
Chapter 33: Catriona
Chapter 34: St. Ninian’s
Chapter 35: Crofters’ Protest
Chapter 36: The McDonnell Cottage
Chapter 37: Moira
BOOK 4: THE LEAVING
Chapter 38: A Cold Spring
Chapter 39: The McDonnell Cottage
Chapter 40: Standing Stones
Chapter 41: Stromness
Chapter 42: Scott’s Mercantile
Chapter 43: Catriona
Chapter 44: Deidre
Chapter 45: Mac
Book 5: The Journey
Chapter 46: Inverness
Chapter 47: The Thames
Chapter 48: Ardkeen House
Chapter 49: Edinburgh
Chapter 50: The Thames
Chapter 51: Ardkeen House
Chapter 52: Edinburgh
Chapter 53: Deidre
Chapter 54: Mac
Chapter 55: The Brilliant
Chapter 56: The Mermaid
Chapter 57: The Brilliant
Chapter 58: Edinburgh
Chapter 59: Cape Town
Chapter 60: The Storm
Chapter 61: Ardkeen House
Chapter 62: Westness
Other Books by Beth Camp
Afterword: About Standing Stones
About Beth Camp
BOOK 1: FOULKSAY ISLAND
Spring - Summer 1841
Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some would eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.
---Attributed to Robert Burns
CHAPTER 1: FOULKSAY ISLAND
A few cold and slimy cod lay in the wheelbarrow. Moira gutted one, washed it in salted water, spread it on the drying rack, and turned back for another. Her back hurt. She had worked steadily all morning, ever since she helped her brothers pull the Star up on the beach.
A steady north wind kicked white caps into the cove and blew along the beach. Sea gulls screamed and fought over fish guts spilled on the rocks close to the water.
Along the rocky beach, women called to each other as they cleaned and racked the morning’s catch on low work tables cobbled together from stone and driftwood. A few laid the cod directly on the sand in neat rows or put them into creels to sell later.
Moira rinsed her hands in the bucket of salty water, the cuts on her fingers stinging, as Dougal came up to her, his brown face as familiar to her as the sea.
“The ferry’s here.” Moira wiped her wet hands on her skirt. “Help me check the knots.” Together they bent over burlap-wrapped bundles of dried fish waiting for transport to the Mainland. Dougal pulled on the twine; the knots held firm. “Let’s get them down to the boat,” said Dougal. He put one of the bundles of dried cod into the empty wheelbarrow and picked up another, laid it on his back, and turned down to the beach, leaving Moira to drag the wheelbarrow to the shore. I wish he would carry two bundles once in a while, Moira thought. His back is big enough.
Moira wrestled the wheelbarrow down to the shore, her skirts gritty, her boots and the wheel of the barrow sinking into the sand. She’d been hauling fish as long as she could remember, bringing wet fish ashore to dry in the wind, taking dried fish back to their boat, and watching her brothers take the boat out to the ferry or over to the market on the Mainland.
“Look,” said Mac pointing to the ferry holding steady at the edge of the cove. “We don’t usually get visitors.”
Moira struggled to pull the wheelbarrow to the side of the Star.
“Aye, and I wonder who’s coming ashore.” Dougal tossed his bundle of dried fish up into the boat where it landed with a thump.
Moira pinched a blister on her finger and leaned against their boat to rest.
“Colin, over here,” called Mac. “Help get these bundles into the Star. Then take the wheelbarrow up to get the last of them.”
Always bossy, Moira thought. It’s because he’s the oldest.
Colin ran back up the beach, the wheelbarrow bouncing behind him.
“Look at that energy,” said Dougal. “It’s past time we should be taking him out with us.”
Jamie looked up from the net he was untangling. “Mac, can I go?”
Mac and Dougal looked at each other. Mac shrugged. “Only one of you this time. Jamie, you stay here with Moira. Colin’s older. Maybe next time.”
Jamie worked the net, his head down.
“Come, Jamie. Let’s see who’s coming to land.”
Moira stood on the beach with Jamie, a little apart from the last-minute bustle on the beach, her hand pressed to her lower back. “Looks like a woman and two men.”
“Yep,” said Jamie, his eyes on the bobbing boat. “’Tis the new laird and his lady, I bet you.”
“And how do you know that?"
“I heard it from Gibson. He brought the buggy down.”
Mac and Dougal stood mid-calf in the surf, waiting for the longboat. They locked their arms together, making a seat to carry the strangers ashore so their feet wouldn’t get wet. They carried the older man ashore first, and then the remaining two.
Moira edged closer. The woman looked to be about her age. Moira watched as the woman smoothed the skirt of her gray traveling suit and pushed aside her heavy veil to whisper something to the man at her side. They laughed. The travelers from the ferry looked everywhere -- at the beach and the island, and at the fishermen and their women, but they spoke to no one.
The woman held a handkerchief to her nose as the strangers made their way up the beach to dry ground, where a horse and buggy waited. One of the men, the shorter one who held the woman’s arm, walked with a slight limp; his feet sank
into the sand.
Moira wondered if the strangers would stay. For the first time, she looked down at her apron, smeared with fish. She probably did smell.
“’Tis Lord Gordon, the new laird, his lady, and his factor,” Dougal said, coming up to her. “They seem proper enough folk.”
“Told you,” chimed in Jamie.
“Proper enough,” said Mac. “But they didn’t part with a penny, did they? Most likely we’ll be taking them back out to the ferry at week’s end, soon as they settle with Hargraves.” He clumped wet sand from his boots. “Moira, Jamie, what are you standing about for? Give us a hand then, while we take this out to the ferry.”
Their boat loaded, Colin and Dougal hopped aboard as Mac, Moira, and Jamie pushed it off the sandy beach. Mac clambered up the side of the boat with the ease of long experience, and the Star was afloat. Dougal pulled up the smaller sail, which quickly caught the wind, and the Star slid over the breakers, to the waiting ferry.
Moira picked up the grass-lined creel she’d filled with fresh-caught cod and strapped it on her back, the lines cutting into her chest and belly. “Are you ready?”
Jamie nodded and grabbed a pail with a few more cod in it, covered over with seaweed. Together they walked up the slight incline of the beach to town. Moira wondered how far they’d have to walk past Selkirk to trade for butter and milk and how many fish she’d have to hang by their cottage door to dry in the wind when the day was done.
Today she just wanted to get cleaned up. She couldn’t stop thinking of the young woman in a gray traveling suit, wearing a veiled hat and holding a pink handkerchief.
CHAPTER 2: BOTTLE BAY
Late the next morning, Mac scanned the sky. Sea gulls and cormorants squawked overhead, the ocean gray as far as he could see, with not a flash of light. Long waves rolled up and broke on the beach and then returned as the tide came in. A few barefoot boys raced along the beach, pelting each other with clumps of wet sand.
Everywhere the beach was littered with small boats, some a little larger than the Star, simple two-masted open boats, their bows sharpened to a point, double the size of a rowboat. Older boats, no longer seaworthy, had been upended atop walls of stone, packed with grass, and made into storage sheds. The men gathered beside the sheds. Some checked the fine mesh nets used for cod; others untangled the long lines needed to catch flounder.
“I want to be first this year,” said Mac, as he began to untwist the 1,200 foot line tangled at his feet.
“Why worry about being first out at the grounds?” Dougal settled on the sand
“If this season goes well, I want to trade up for a skaffie,” said Mac. He shook out another section and ran his hands down the thin line, his fingers checking for knots. He coiled the smooth line neatly into a large woven fish-basket as he worked.
“Each in its own season. Herring is months away.” Dougal pulled a section of line free from the tangle at his feet. ”You don’t like Da’s boat anymore?”
“I never have. It swamps too easily, as you well know. You almost slithered off last time out, and now I have to worry about Colin. We do have to take him out. It’s past time.”
“We don’t have the money for a new boat,” said Dougal.
“We didn't have money for your violin, did we? But we got it." Mac untangled the line without stopping. "I was talking to Sean over at the Pig’s Head. He’s willing to work with us. He’d let us trade the Star up for a skaffie if he comes in for a share.”
Dougal tugged another section of line straight, careful to avoid the hooks, flicking the old bait onto the sand. “It’s only five years since Da died. We’re doing all right.”
“That’s what you say.” Mac stopped working and looked out again across Bottle Bay, at the clouds hugging the horizon. “You weren’t there when the storm came up out of nowhere. You didn’t see Da washed off the deck like he was some kind of flying fish.”
“Don’t be getting mad all over again. It happened.”
“Everything changed with that storm and Da gone.” Mac’s fingers stilled. He'd had no complaints when his father had needed him on the boat. Fishing seemed a good life then, at least better than grubbing on land.
“I miss Da too.”
“She’s too small to stand the winter storms,” grumbled Mac. He stood and slapped the bow of the Star. “She runs low in the water.”
“She’ll do.”
“She still runs too low in the water.”
“You remember why Da named her the Star?”
“I remember.”
“Well,” said Dougal. “She’s good enough for us, then.”
“It’s still something to have a bigger boat.” Mac settled down on the sandy beach and picked up another bit of line, untwisting the tangle. “And I wouldn’t mind being first to get to the grounds tomorrow.”
“We’ll be ready.” Dougal cleared another lump of tangled line.
An afternoon wind straight from the north pushed the sand along the beach, stinging Mac’s and Dougal’s faces as they sat in the lee of their boat. Their hands moved constantly, knotting hooks on their two lines now untangled, over 1,000 hooks on each line. The cold air smelled of the sea.
Mac watched the waves roll up on the shore. “Another storm’s coming in.” He wondered if they would have enough money for a larger boat at the end of the herring run. He didn’t really want to go shares with Sean. “Let’s hope she blows over before we go out.”
“Aye. And where’s Colin this afternoon?”
“Over at the Mercantile,” said Mac. “Unpacking boxes. He’s a good worker.”
“I know. He takes after me,” said Dougal. He poked Mac’s shoulder lightly.
“He should come with us tomorrow. He needs to learn the marks.”
“He’ll learn. And Jamie?”
“We’ll take him one day. He’s young yet. After all, Colin’s almost a man. What were we doing at sixteen?”
“Jamie still wants to go with us, you know.”
“I know. In spite of his books.” Mac rested his hands on his knees for a moment, several hooks gleaming on his left palm. “I heard some folk got evicted the other day.”
“Here, on Foulksay?”
“No. Down by Sutherland. Gibson told me they’re bringing in sheep. The people had no food and no work. And no way to pay the rents.”
“We have enough,” said Dougal.
“If it happened there, it can happen here.”
Moira and Jamie started down the hill toward the boat, both nearly bent over from carrying two tin pails filled with dead fish. They settled on the sand near Mac and Dougal and began twisting fish heads onto the hooks.
Mac jabbed Dougal’s ribs and pointed toward the beach. “Look there. ‘Tis the new laird. That must be his factor, for it’s not Hargraves, ‘n not any one we know.”
Their hands still for a moment, Mac and Dougal watched the two men walk along the beach, one limping. The factor pointed at the headlands and the cart path that led up the hill, and then, as if they were alone, they walked slowly back to Selkirk.
“I wonder what they were doing.”
“Nothing that brings us good,” said Mac. He threaded another hook on his line.
CHAPTER 3: WESTNESS
Lord Gordon stared at the marble bust of Wellington, a gift from his father. His collection of leather-bound books on India had been properly arranged in the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that filled three walls. As he glanced around his office at Westness, he sensed Perkins at his back. Hanging oil lamps flickered occasionally as the wind blustered around the east side of the house. Hargraves sat in front of him.
“Hargraves, my uncle thought well of you,” began Lord Gordon. “His trust has been answered by many years of service, especially this last year following his death.” Gordon looked at the man perched uncomfortably on the cushioned chair in front of his desk, the estate account books balanced on his lap. “Nevertheless, the revenues are not at all what I anticipated.”
&n
bsp; “Sir, times have been hard.” Hargraves shifted again, deep brown circles under his eyes. The account books slid on his lap; little slips of paper stuck out between its pages. “The people are good workers, sir. They will not disappoint you.”
“That may be,” said Lord Gordon. “But I want Perkins to take over the accounting. You will be paid through quarter day. Whitsunday, I believe.” He turned back to the stack of letters Perkins had opened for him.
“Sir, am I not wanted, then?”
“Perkins will call you if you are needed. Give the accounts to him on your way out.” Gordon did not look up.
Hargraves handed the books to Perkins. “I served your uncle over thirty years, sir.”
“And they were good years, I am sure. I will send for you if you are needed. Perkins, see him out.”
Hargraves turned and followed Perkins out of the office, his back straight.
Gordon looked around his office again. A life-sized painting of Lord George Alexander Gordon in battle dress, the fourth earl of Selkirk, hung over the fireplace. Alice had placed a row of blue and white Chinese urns on the mantle atop the marble-faced fireplace, where a peat fire burned behind brass andirons. Perhaps not as nice as his brother’s office in London, but it would do. At least it was entirely his.
“Your review with Hargraves is complete?” asked Gordon as Perkins came back into the office. He wondered again if Perkin’s very large nose made him so obsequious.
“Yes, sir.”
“And your findings?”
“The holdings are extensive, sir, as we had discussed. But, as you said, sir, the returns are low.”
“Is there any flaw in Hargraves’ accounting?”
“No, sir. But overall, the income’s not the same as Lord Alexander’s estate in the south.”
Gordon’s mouth twisted as he thought of his brother. “To the task, Perkins. What do they farm?”
Oats and bere, sir. Potatoes.”
“Bere?” Gordon raised his eyebrows. “What’s bere?”