God's Highlander

by Thompson, E. V.

  A warm friendship had grown up between the two men during the two weeks Alasdair Burns had been staying at the manse, and the travelling schoolteacher was genuinely pleased for the Minister. In secret he had feared that if it came to a showdown Lord Kilmalie would rule in favour of his factor, as most landlords were wont to do.

  ‘Who’ll be coming to this school of yours?’ Evangeline’s voice was chill.

  ‘Every child in the district, if I have my way.’

  ‘Girls as well as boys?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’ll not teach girls.’ The surprising statement came from Alasdair Burns. ‘They’re trouble. Too imaginative by far.’

  ‘How very interesting.’ The Glasgow schoolteacher seemed able to strike sparks from Evangeline, and her eyebrows were raised in an exaggerated manner. ‘Perhaps you’d care to draw on your experience and tell us more, Mr Burns?’

  ‘I’ve said all that needs saying. If you want to know more, I suggest you visit Glasgow gaol next time you’re there. You’ll find thirteen schoolteachers lodged inside. Eleven as a result of teaching girls.’

  Wyatt stepped in hurriedly, before Evangeline could question Alasdair Burns further about his knowledge of the inmates of Glasgow gaol.

  ‘That’s in a city. Things are different here in the Highlands.’

  ‘Not for me. Trouble has never had any difficulty finding me. I don’t need to go looking for it. I’ll not teach girls.’

  ‘I will. Boys, too, if Mr Burns feels he’d rather go off and teach elsewhere. ’ The triumph in Evangeline’s voice was tinged with irritation. She was aware this man aroused totally unreasonable anger in her, but she did not know why it should be so.

  ‘Alasdair will remain in Eskaig.’

  During the couple of weeks he had known the one-legged schoolteacher, Wyatt had developed respect for the man’s knowledge and learning. The pupils of the lochside school would have an exceptional teacher in Alasdair Burns. Wyatt had no intention of letting him go – and parents might not be so keen to send their children to school if they were to be taught by the daughter of their factor.

  To Evangeline, he said: ‘If you’re really serious about wanting to teach, there’s no reason why our new school shouldn’t have two classrooms. One for Alasdair and the boys, the other for you and the girls. But what will your father think of you teaching Eskaig children?’

  Evangeline’s chin came up in a defiant attitude that reminded Wyatt of her father. ‘I’m old enough to make decisions for myself. Anyway, I don’t doubt he’ll be more than happy to have me somewhere where he isn’t tripping over me the whole time.’

  Something in her voice made Wyatt wonder whether she, too, knew about Seonaid Fraser.

  Wyatt was taken aback by the explosion of enthusiasm among his parishioners when he announced from the pulpit of the church that Eskaig was to have a school. When he left the church he was besieged by parents anxious to enrol their children as students. By the time the last parent had departed for home, Wyatt and Alasdair Burns had taken the names of thirty boys and seventeen girls who would be attending classes when school began.

  There was equal enthusiasm when Wyatt called for men to build the school and a teacher’s house on the plot of land Wyatt had chosen, alongside the churchyard.

  Wyatt had expected John Garrett to place difficulties in his way in respect of the school. However, it seemed Lord Kilmalie’s letter to his factor had left no room for argument. Wyatt went to the Garrett house to inform the factor of his choice, only to be informed that he could ‘do what the hell he liked’. John Garrett added that if Lord Kilmalie wanted to give away land without consulting his factor it was entirely the landowner’s business.

  The school and schoolhouse were built in eleven days. It would have been ten, had work not ceased for one day as a mark of respect for the area’s oldest inhabitant who died on the day the foundations were laid for the school.

  Archibald Mackinnon died in the week of his hundred and third birthday, in a remote crofter’s cottage many miles to the north of Loch Eil. His passing broke the last human link with the area’s glorious past. As a young boy, Mackinnon had shaken hands with Prince Charles Stuart. The occasion had been the young Pretender’s triumphal procession along the banks of Loch Eil, on his way to make a near-successful bid to win back the throne of his ancestors.

  Mackinnon was nine years of age when the proud young prince became a hunted fugitive, leaving his bloodied and defeated supporters to straggle back to their homes about Eskaig after the horror of the battlefield of Culloden.

  Archibald Mackinnon survived the English wrath that scythed through the Highlands in the wake of Culloden when the Duke of Cumberland set out to destroy the heritage of the clans. He saw the pipes and the tartan banned, and survived to witness the restoration of at least a vestige of ancient Highland pride.

  The grand old man had also become something of a legend in his own right. It was said his illicit still produced a whisky that had no equal in the whole of Scotland.

  When news was brought to Wyatt that the old man had died, he immediately set out to visit the Mackinnon home. It was the dead man’s wish to be buried in the Eskaig churchyard, alongside long-forgotten ancestors, and Wyatt wanted to discuss the funeral with the man’s relatives.

  Wyatt found the family with their relatives and neighbours holding a ‘mourning party’. It was an event that Archibald Mackinnon would have greatly enjoyed. The dead man was in his bed in the centre of the cot’s earthen-floored living-area. The body was not lying down in repose, but propped up in sitting posture, as though not to miss any of the activities going on about him. At one end of the long low cottage was the byre, separated from the living-area by only a flimsy wooden fence. On the other side pigs grunted and squealed noisily, squabbling over the occasional titbit disposed of in their direction.

  When he arrived, Wyatt quickly discovered he was the only sober man present. The pungent reek of whisky hung on the air, and those who had been subjected to its fiery potency for too long were sprawled on the floor about the dead man’s bed.

  The arrival of the minister created a temporary diversion. A heavily bearded man who declared he was the dead man’s great-grandson cleared a zigzag path to the deathbed, shouting: ‘Make way for the preacher. Clear a way to the corpse.’

  Anyone who was slow to remove himself from the path of the bearded man’s unpredictable course was roughly shoved aside. One man who lay in his path on the mud floor was kicked until he crawled away and disappeared beneath the dead man’s bed.

  By the time Wyatt reached the bed only the unconscious ‘mourners’ were unaware of his arrival. The remainder gathered about him, clutching a wide variety of drinking-vessels and staring, slack-mouthed. Wyatt had the uncomfortable feeling he was expected to provide his watchers with some form of miracle. Perhaps breathe new life into the dehydrated body of the man who occupied the bed.

  Wyatt cleared his throat noisily. ‘Er … shall we say a prayer together for the soul of our dear departed brother…?’

  ‘Brother? Brother? What’s he talking about? Archibald’s been nobody’s brother since Dougall died thirty years since.’ A small toothless dumpling of a woman, with a face almost as wrinkled as the dead man’s, peered belligerently about the room, defying anyone to argue with her.

  ‘That’s Great-Aunt Flora,’ explained Wyatt’s guide in a whisper that was heard by every conscious man and woman in the cot. ‘Great-Grandad’s only surviving child. She’s a wee bit simple….’

  ‘I heard that! I heard every word, you ungrateful devil. I’m not so simple that I didn’t know you were robbing my poor dead father of his sheep when it got so he couldn’t get out to count them for himself. And what’s this ministear doing here? If you’d spent more time with your great-grandpa, you’d have known he couldn’t stand the sight of a preacher. He always said if heaven was going to be full of preachers he’d take his chance with the devil. Go back to Eskaig, ministear. We�
�ll be at the village by noon tomorrow and you can say your piece over him then – but be sure he’s laid in the ground next to his father and those brothers you were just mentioning. Put him anywhere else and I swear he’ll haunt you to the end of your days….’

  There was a movement from beneath the bed, and a voice began to bemoan the fact that someone had stolen his whisky. There was a bump as the unknown speaker struggled to rise to his feet. The bed shook and suddenly tilted to one side, pitching the body of Archibald Mackinnon to the floor.

  Wyatt made his escape during the ensuing mêlée. Once outside he leaned against the side of the cottage and mopped his brow. It sounded as though a clan war had broken out within the cottage, but Wyatt wanted no part of it. Had the whisky not been flowing quite so freely, he would have returned and tried to restore some dignity to the scene, but he knew better than to interfere in a Highland family dispute when all the participants were fired with drink.

  Stepping over a body that lay across the path, Wyatt set off across the springy upland turf on the three-hour return walk to Eskaig.

  Eleven

  THE FUNERAL SERVICE for Archibald Mackinnon was a memorable occasion for Wyatt in many ways – and one he would have been happy to forgo. The centenarian’s links with Highland history brought clan heads, landowners and Scots title-holders from as far away as Inverness. How the news of the death and time of Mackinnon’s funeral reached them, Wyatt would never know, yet all morning they poured into the small Iochside village, completely swamping the facilities of Eskaig’s single, somewhat disreputable inn. The shore of Loch Eil and the adjacent hillside were dotted with colourful groups of Highland gentry, sporting a variety of tartans, although few wore the predominantly red sett of the Mackinnon.

  At eleven-thirty the visitors began to file into the small church. By noon the church was full and villagers were standing in the aisles and crowding around the doorway – but there was no sign of the funeral cortège.

  By twelve-thirty Wyatt was remembering the events of the previous day, and beginning to wonder whether any of the Mackinnons had been left alive after their altercation.

  By one-thirty most of the exalted guests had forsaken the church and were seeking refreshment at the Eskaig inn.

  Two hours after the funeral service should have begun, it was suggested a horseman be despatched to learn what had happened to the funeral cortege of the late Archibald Mackinnon. One or two of the gentry, more irascible than the others, decided to call it a day and went home.

  Then one of the village boys who had been stationed along the road the funeral procession would take shouted: ‘Here they come!’ A few minutes later the drone of pipes could be heard and the procession came into view.

  Funerals were always special occasions in the Highlands and Islands, and Wyatt had seen a great many, but never one like this. There were many more mourners than had been present at the Mackinnon croft the previous day, men and women having joined the procession during its long progress. But it was not its size that made such an impression on Wyatt. The procession had the air of a retreat by the vanquished from a battlefield. Cuts and bruises were much in evidence, and the mourners at the head of the procession walked as though defeated in body and mind. Then Wyatt observed a number of flagons being passed from hand to hand and he realised that the Mackinnons were still inebriated.

  It was with a sense of deep misgiving that Wyatt stood back at the churchyard gate to allow the Mackinnon family through. Only when most of them had passed by did a significant omission become apparent.

  Wyatt looked anxiously down the long line of mourners before hurrying to the church entrance and tackling the bearded great-grandson who had welcomed Wyatt to the Mackinnon croft.

  ‘Where’s the coffin? I can’t see it….’ Wyatt had to repeat his question three times to the glazed-eyed Highlander before it provoked a response – and then a furious argument erupted among the family mourners.

  ‘You should have been carrying him….’

  ‘We carried him for the first half-mile; it was your family’s turn.’

  ‘Who brought him down the most difficult part…?’

  ‘Where did you see the old man last…?’

  Doing his best to contain an increasing sense of panic, Wyatt questioned one of the more sober mourners and discovered the coffin had last been seen about a mile back along the track, when the party crossed a small stream. This, at least, was a relief. Wyatt had thought for one ghastly moment that the procession had left the body of the centenarian in bed at the croft, high in the mountains.

  A party of villagers volunteered to return along the way the mourners had come in a bid to locate the missing coffin, and Wyatt went inside the church to seat the family of Archibald Mackinnon and explain the latest delay to the congregation.

  It was another fifty minutes before six perspiring Eskaig villagers entered the church bearing the coffin containing the body of Archibald Mackinnon. In a hurried aside one of the men informed Wyatt they had found the coffin tilted on its end against a tree, a number of bearers lying about it in various stages of intoxication.

  By this time many more of the congregation had left the little church and such was the state of the Mackinnon family that Wyatt cut the service short and hurried them outside to the fresh air of the churchyard. Here, as swiftly as decency and dignity would allow, the centenarian was laid to rest among his ancestors.

  It was with a great sense of relief that Wyatt saw the Mackinnon family straggling back towards their croft in the high lands. After a potentially disastrous beginning, the funeral service had ended comparatively well – if one overlooked the bearded grandson who overbalanced and fell into the grave on top of the coffin and had to be lifted out by other family members.

  Preacher Coll Kennedy stood beside Wyatt as the Mackinnons disappeared into the distance. He had arrived shortly before the funeral service began, having heard of the old man’s death only that morning. He had ridden to Eskaig as fast as his aged donkey would travel. Coll Kennedy had known Archibald Mackinnon for most of his life and was, he said, distantly related to the Mackinnon family.

  The preacher from Letterfinlay had managed to sample some of the whisky carried by his distant kinsmen, but he was by no means drunk. As the last Mackinnon reeled out of sight, he shook his head sadly. ‘You’re witnessing the turning of a page of history, Wyatt. Things will never be the same in the Highlands now that Archibald Mackinnon has gone. His family looked on him as an anachronism, a man who had long outlived his usefulness, but now they’ll learn the truth. It was only old Archibald who held the Mackinnons together, here where their roots lie. In five years’ time – no, three – there won’t be a Mackinnon left in this part of Scotland, you mark my words.’

  ‘There are no doubt some who’ll be pleased to see the back of them. They’re a wild lot.’

  ‘True, but it’s men like the Mackinnons who taught the world the meaning of loyalty to their own. They’re true clansmen.’

  Wyatt conceded the truth of Coll Kennedy’s argument, and the tall gangling Letterfinlay preacher rested a hand on Wyatt’s shoulder. ‘You’ve had a hard day, Wyatt. There will be few days when you have to bury a centenarian, deal with his drunken family and tug your forelock to every family of note living within twenty miles of Eskaig. Talking of drink … would you have any of that fine whisky left? I need something to take away the taste of “The Mackinnon”….’

  Inside the manse Wyatt allowed himself the luxury of sitting down to enjoy a glass of whisky with his guest. Alasdair Burns also sat with them, but he drank nothing stronger than tea. He was much tidier these days, his hair and beard trimmed neatly and more in keeping with his new status as Eskaig’s proposed schoolteacher. Coll Kennedy looked at the one-legged man as though he had questions he would like to ask, but for the time being he kept them to himself.

  ‘I didn’t see Angus Cameron at the funeral.’

  ‘He hasn’t attended the kirk since I came here. I’ve tried
to persuade him to come back, so have the other elders, but Cameron is a stubborn man.’ Wyatt had seen Angus Cameron on his knees in the roadway outside Eskaig as Archibald Mackinnon’s coffin was carried through the village.

  ‘He’s also a man of considerable stature. We’re going to need men like him in the near future, Wyatt. Things are happening in the Church. Serious things that threaten to tear the Church of Scotland apart. You’ve heard?’

  Wyatt shook his head. He had been so tied up with parochial matters that there had been no time to keep up with national issues.

  ‘You’ve solved the problems you had when you arrived in Eskaig, and the result is satisfactory to everyone. Other parts of Scotland haven’t been so fortunate. Landowners have appointed ministers totally unacceptable to the people and refused to listen to the objections. Recent court cases have made matters worse. The courts have decreed that a landowner is entitled to appoint a minister to a living, no matter what the people think. It’s an issue that eats at the very foundation of our way of worship, Wyatt. It’s split the Church in two. Half believe the matter of a minister’s acceptance should be settled by the people themselves. The others say we must go along with whatever the courts decree.’

  ‘Where do you stand?’

  ‘I’m with the people. Sometimes, as in your case, they may need a little persuading that they have the right man, but it’s for the minister to do the convincing, not the landowner – or the courts of the land.’

  ‘I agree. There was a time when I thought I would have to leave Eskaig for those very reasons. It’s for the people to decide who they want. But what can be done if a minister is appointed by the landowner and refuses to respect the wishes of his parishioners?’

  ‘If the people make it clear they don’t want a minister, the Church must step in and refuse to induct him.’

  Alasdair Burns entered the conversation for the first time. ‘If they do, the landowner can now take the matter to the courts knowing they’ll decide in his favour. There is another course of action, but it’s so radical I can’t see many members of the established church even considering it.’