by CL Skelton
‘Don’t be cheeky. Are you from Inverness?’
‘Och, no. I come from up there somewhere.’ The boy waved his hand in a general northerly direction.
He was probably one of the clan, then, thought Willie. That was important. It made it right for him to be in the regiment. Not that the name implied any blood relationship; the nameless ones on the big Scottish estates usually adopted the surname of the chief. Also, they really could use a drummer boy; C Company did not possess one. He looked at wee Alex and decided he’d be doing him a favour by taking him into the regiment. The life was hard and sometimes brutal, but he would get enough to eat. And the boy would stand a decent chance of not ending up in prison or on the gallows as a pickpocket, or worse. Above all, he said that his name was Maclaren, and that he came from up there; that counted for a lot.
‘Have you eaten today, lad?’ The boy shook his head. ‘Here, get this inside you then.’ He fished a chunk of cheese out of his sporran and watched as the boy ate ravenously. ‘Are the police after you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘It wouldn’t make any difference, you know.’
‘You’re all right, mister,’ said the boy, stuffing the last piece of cheese into his mouth.
‘And if you’re going to be a soldier, you’ll need to learn to stand to attention and call me “sergeant” when you speak to me.’
‘Aye, sergeant.’ He brought his thin little body to a parody of attention.
‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’ll take you to ma hoose. It has a fine steading and you’ll be able to sleep there. We’ll get you some boots and see if with good vittles you can put on a bitty flesh. You can help me da in the field, and if you’re a good worker, when I go back to the regiment next week, I’ll take you with me and we’ll see if we can make a soldier out of you.’
Richard Simpson ran his fingers through the thick black mop of hair that covered his head. He was seated at his desk in the estate office in the factor’s house. This house was his home, a pleasant little six-room dwelling of harled stone. It had been recently built about a mile from Culbrech House and provided more than ample accommodation for his bachelor needs. It lay close to the main road between the big house and the tiny village of Crasks of Agais, where a number of the estate workers lived.
Dick Simpson was an Englishman, something of a rarity in those parts, the youngest son of a large family, who had taken up estate management as one of the few ways that a gentleman of limited means could with dignity earn a living.
His devotion to the Maclarens was beyond question, and he had taken it upon himself to try to hold together as much of the family fortunes as Sir Henry’s generosity and Andrew’s lack of interest would allow. They seemed to think that their investments in the railways and in Lancashire cotton would maintain their wealth for the foreseeable future. That was as might be, but the estate itself ought to be a viable unit, and to maintain it as such was no simple task.
Quite a lot had happened on the credit side. They now ran the Cheviot and the black-faced sheep. These were beasts which could be handled in large flocks by a single shepherd and a couple of dogs. The old, small highland sheep would not herd, and would not respond to dogs. The labour requirements for hill farming had, by the introduction of these sheep, been cut as much as eighty per cent. Had Sir Henry behaved as most, but by no means all, of the lairds, and cleared his lands of unnecessary labour, then all would have been well. This Sir Henry would not do. Most of the families in the glen had men in the regiment, and Sir Henry would rather beggar himself and his own family than see them suffer. But each of these families needed about four acres in order to survive, and while that might be morally good, it was not economic sense.
Richard Simpson had seen several of the lairds go to the wall for these reasons and was determined that he would not allow it to happen here. Just now they were all right, they could get by. But the long-term future was very shaky. That was why he was sitting and gazing at a large-scale map of the estate and marking off sections of about twenty to thirty acres. Some of these areas were already wooded with tall, bushy-topped Caledonian pine, and these he was in the process of harvesting. He was, however, sure that there was a great future in timber, and that it lay not in the native Caledonian but in the faster-growing and hardier Norwegian variety, and for several years now he had been reforesting with Norwegians as an investment against the future.
Of course, there was another way. If a good marriage could be arranged for Andrew, then all would be well. It was unfortunate that Maud Westburn had appeared on the scene. Obviously she was in comfortable circumstances, but she did not strike Richard as being sufficiently wealthy to fill the bill. He was unaware, of course, of the cause of her arrival at Culbrech, but her presence there worried him none the less. The important thing was that the family should survive. After all, it was a noble and ancient clan which Richard Simpson served, and into which he had been accepted as one of them. Only a few weeks ago he had been down to the borders buying a couple of breeding rams. There he had been offered the management of a massive estate near Peebles. This he had refused without a second thought. Factor he was and factor he would remain, but advancement was not important to him, and the Maclarens were ‒ especially one of them, Margaret. He and Margaret always saw eye to eye about the running of the estate, and though it was not very likely, perhaps one day …
But there was work to do. He turned back to his maps just as she walked into the office, seating herself beside him at the desk, ready to discuss the autumn planting.
That evening after dinner as the darkness was gathering through the long, slow twilight, Andrew suggested to Maud that she might care to take a walk outside. Even though autumn was upon them, the evening was warm, bearing a reminder of the summer that had not so long passed. Together they strolled out on to the lawn and among the scattered pines.
‘Funny how everyone always seems to think that it is cold up here,’ said Maud. ‘I know I always did.’
‘The frozen North,’ replied Andrew smiling. ‘You know, you and I have not done this since we were on the ship together.’
He had mentioned the ship deliberately, but she did not seem to mind. ‘That was only a few weeks ago,’ she said in reply.
They walked on in silence for a while, and then, hesitantly, he took her hand. She accepted the gesture without demur, her hand soft in his, feeling the pressure of the heavy gold signet ring which he wore on his little finger. The night was coming soon and the stars were beginning to appear in the sky. Somewhere a blackbird called, and a sheep bleated plaintively. Away over the other side of the hill, someone was playing the pipes. The setting, the gentle contact, the whole atmosphere gave them both a feeling of peace and warmth and well-being.
In the withdrawing room, Lady Maclaren went over to the French windows and looked out over the balcony. She stood for a moment, and then her face hardened and an expression of determination set upon her mouth. She turned quite quickly and went directly to her sitting room, where she took note-paper, pen, and ink. She started to write in her firm copperplate hand:
Dear Reverend Mother,
I feel that it is time …
Chapter Six
The two weeks he had spent with Willie Bruce’s parents had been a revelation to wee Alex. Every day had produced its new experience. Every day had been so full that his fortnight had seemed like two months, and yet the time had flown. For the first time in his short life he had discovered that there could be order and peace and happiness, and not the hunger and brutality which had scarred his preceding days. He had found himself among people who knew who they were and where they belonged and were proud of it, and for the first time he realized that there was something in life called security. The manner in which he had been accepted by the people, not only the Bruces but also their friends and neighbours, had amazed him. He was one of themselves and accepted as himself.
He had settled happily in the but-and-ben which Willie’s
parents called home and which lay on the hill rising gently away from the big house about a mile away. It was a small dwelling, but to the boy, it was luxury beyond his wildest dreams. It was the first real home he had ever lived in. There were only two rooms; the but, or kitchen, small, though spacious by his standards, all clean and shining where Mrs Bruce prepared the morning porridge and the main evening meal of meat and tatties and neaps. The living room, the ben, where the family lived and slept, was comfortable and furnished with good, solid pieces, nearly all of which were gifts of the laird. Here, too, there were personal mementoes like the old foot plough which had been cemented into the wall above the fireplace, and the Russian officer’s sword above the sideboard ‒ symbols of the two ways of life of the Maclarens and their people. Ever present, too, lay the huge Bible open on the table.
Of course Alex did not sleep in the ben, but the steading was almost as comfortable; plenty of clean straw and a clean blanket, and the warmth of Mr Bruce’s Highland pony with which he shared it. He slept better there than he had ever done in his short life, and even when the cat decided to stroll across his dormant form in the middle of the night, perhaps to share his bed, it never disturbed Alex.
Willie’s mother had taken the boy in with typical Highland hospitality, pressing his head between her ample soft breasts and making motherly noises almost as soon as Willie had brought him over the threshold. After her greeting, however, she had taken him outside to the tin tub by the burn, stripped him, and gone over his shivering body with a hard scrubbing brush and a vast amount of MacFarlane’s Carbolic Soap. Then she burned his rags and supplied him with an outfit from the box in which she kept all of Willie’s cast-off childhood clothes.
Alex soon settled down to the routine of the crofting life. He was up at dawn and worked until dark, but for all his small frame, he was tougher than he looked and he revelled in it. He worked out in the fields, those four or five acres which sloped above and below the but-and-ben and which provided the Bruces with their vegetables and winter feed for the cow. There was good topsoil on their little piece of land ‒ good, that is, for the Highlands ‒ and it had to be turned over now to catch the winter frosts so that it was ready for the sowing in early spring. He worked on until it was dark, returning to the croft in the evening, ravenous, to a huge meal of broth and meat. They seemed to have meat, mostly venison, almost every day, which was unusual but which could be put down to the fact that Willie’s father was a better poacher than most of the estate workers ‒ or perhaps the ghillies had instructions not to catch him.
Alex learned quickly. They had burned the brush and started the ploughing, and he was handling the horse and the heavy share with confidence beyond his years. Within a few days, Mr Bruce was able to leave him alone at that task.
It was the middle of the afternoon when Willie found him still at work. He watched him for a while, until he had finished a furrow and raised the share to go to his marker and start another.
‘Alex,’ he called.
‘Yes, sergeant,’ he replied, coming strictly to attention and letting go of his plough.
Willie grinned. The boy was trying to be a soldier already. ‘You still want to join the army, eh?’
Alex looked worried. ‘You are taking me.’
‘Aye, if you still want it. Ma mither says that you can stay here if you’d rather.’
‘I want to be a sodjer, sergeant.’ He stuck out his chest, looking Willie straight in the eye as his horse dragged the plough over to a patch of green grass under the dry-stone wall of the field.
‘Look!’ Willie said, pointing to the horse. ‘It’s a good job youse are not going into the cavalry.’
‘Sorry, sergeant,’ said Alex, abashed, and he ran over to secure his horse.
‘Well, if you’re still of a mind, we’ll be leaving tomorrow. There’s another sergeant coming today, and he’ll be taking the new recruits down. You can come with me if you like.’
‘Thank you, sergeant.’
‘We’re going to take a lady on the steamer to Fort William, where we leave her, and then catch the train to Perth.’
Willie had seen Lady Maclaren earlier that day, and she had suggested that he might escort Maud as far as Fort William and see her safely aboard the packet for Larne in Ulster, where she would be met by the sisters. As the other sergeant and a couple of trained soldiers who were arriving would be quite capable of handling the eighty or so recruits Willie had managed to gather in his campaign, he agreed most readily.
Andrew would not be returning to the regiment for a few days, as he would be required at home for the ball the Maclarens gave each year at the beginning of autumn. He was needed because his father might not be able to attend. At least that was the reason given.
Willie was surprised to learn that Maud was to leave for Ireland before the ball. There had, of course, been rumours, that was none of his business. And anyway, he was glad of the chance to avoid the journey to Perth with the recruits, especially as it would not affect the bounty of two shillings and sixpence he would receive for each one of them. Another advantage was that there would certainly be a few deserters en route, and it would not be up to him to explain them.
At six o’clock the next morning their carriage pulled away from Culbrech House to catch the steamer which would leave Muirton Lock at Inverness at eight-thirty. Miss Westburn and Willie rode inside, while a very jubilant and excited wee Alex rode with Donnie Driver on the box. The coachman was known as Donnie Driver because, like so many in the glen, his surname was Maclaren. Also, like so many, he was retired from the army and the possessor of a glass eye which, under his grey hair and beetling eyebrows, gave him a most fearsome aspect. Wee Alex was quite terrified of Donnie and he rode in silence as they drove through Strathglass, and then across the river at the little village of Kiltarlity, all grey and damp from the haar, that dampness somewhere between mist and rain, which had drifted in from the sea. Then they headed away to the shores of the Moray Firth and drove down the old coaching road to Muirton Lock, just north of the city of Inverness. They arrived just in time to board the steamer before it cast off and headed out through the first of the lock gates and on into the Caledonian Canal. The weather was pleasant and mild, and so they stayed on deck. The trip would take most of the day. It would be about five in the evening before they arrived in Fort William, and Lady Maclaren’s cook had laden them with a hamper of cold chicken, meat, and a liberal supply of beer from the big barrel in the kitchen.
Alex was fascinated by the steamer. It was small, in reality ‒ about seventy-five feet overall ‒ but to him it seemed enormous. Of course, he had seen it before, but never as close as this. It was driven by two great paddle wheels, and black coal smoke was belching from its thin, smutty funnel. It was comparatively new and the line of red paint between the hull and the waterline showed bright in the morning sunlight which had burnt off the haar. But already there were streaks of rust dripping away from the anchors and around the portholes. They cast off amid a great deal of shouting and were soon heading for the first of the lochs which formed the Caledonian Canal.
As the little steamer emerged from Bonar Narrows and headed out in Loch Ness, Willie pointed to the little village on their left.
‘That’s where I met wee Alex,’ he said.
‘It looks different from here,’ said Alex, who had never been on the water in his life. ‘It’s afu’ big.’
‘Do you mean the Loch, Alex?’ asked Maud.
‘Aye, Miss. I hope the Kelpie is no aboot.’
‘Kelpie?’
‘There are tales of a great beast in the Loch, but nobody ever proved anything,’ said Willie.
‘Not so very long ago, I was on a river that was bigger than this,’ said Maud.
‘Was that in India, ma’am?’ asked Willie, who had seen the sadness come into her eyes. ‘I shouldna talk aboot it if I were you. Anyhow, it was no as beautiful as Glen More; there’s little in the world that is.’
She was surprise
d to hear such a remark from him, and her curiosity overcame the black thoughts which had entered her mind. ‘But you’re a soldier,’ she said. The remark was an involuntary expression of the strictures of class and ignorance which lay between them.
‘Aye,’ he replied, ‘I’m a soldier, but I’m a mannie, too. So what do ye mean?’
‘Your business is war and guns and being away in foreign lands. You must have seen a great deal, and yet you still see the greatest beauty here in your own home?’
‘A man that canna see beauty canna live.’ He held out the palms of his hands for her to look at. ‘These hands know how to hold a gun or a sword, and they know how to use them when they must. But they find more joy in the tight-knit wool of a newborn lamb, or a smooth stone in a fast-running burn, or …’
He stopped and looked hard at her. ‘Or in the softness of a lassie’s cheek.’
She coloured slightly under his gaze. ‘You are a remarkable man, Willie Bruce,’ she said.
‘What are yees talking aboot?’ asked Alex. ‘Lookee, they’re putting a coo on the boat.’
They had stopped at Temple Pier in Urquhart Bay, the first fourteen miles of their sixty-mile journey completed. They stood in the bows and watched the loading and unloading of passengers, goods, and livestock. Among that livestock was Alex’s cow. It perhaps realized the fate that was in store for it when it arrived at Fort William, and was objecting strenuously to being forced up the narrow gangway and on to the boat. All of this was sheer delight to the boy. He danced up and down recounting every action of the drovers and their reluctant charge, and crying encouragement to the beast. But of course the animal lost, and a pair of somewhat battered cowmen returned to shore, signalled to the boat, and the gangway was slid away as they cast off again into the loch. They rounded Strone Point, where stood the majestic ruins of Urquhart Castle, and down Loch Ness towards Fort Augustus with its towering mountains sweeping upwards in scree-covered slopes on either side.