God's Highlander

by Thompson, E. V.

  ‘Yes…. Yes, I think I might. There’s a family I want to evict who should put up enough of a fight to keep both you and your men happy.’

  The factor was John Garrett, and the family he had in mind belonged to Eneas Ross.

  The factor for the Kilmalie estate had instituted the most wide-reaching clearances this part of Scotland had known. With the aid of the military he was emptying vast areas of the mountains north of Eskaig. The evicted Highlanders shouldered their few salvaged possessions and set off in search of another place to stay, leaving their homes burning behind them. While the ashes were still smouldering, sheep were moved in by the hundred; by the thousand – and in tens of thousands. They cropped hard-won gardens to the ground, their cloven hoofs trampling on the pride and aspirations of a whole people.

  Few of the dispossessed Highlanders were able to find a permanent refuge. Some wandered aimlessly about the mountains for days until they disappeared, no one knowing where. Others made their way to Eskaig. Here they sought the sanctuary of the school, or camped above mouldering ancestors in the churchyard.

  Wyatt tried to speak to John Garrett, to plead with him to halt the clearances, but John Garrett was rarely at home. Mostly he was out with the Army, supervising the clearance of Kilmalie lands. Many of his nights, too, were spent away from home, John Garrett choosing to remain in Fort William whenever he could.

  The scale of the clearances was far worse than anything Wyatt had anticipated, and feeding the victims became a major problem. The homeless families were kept alive mainly by the generosity of local fishermen. It was fortunate, too, that the weather was kind. When it changed it would be impossible to put everyone under cover unless Angus Cameron opened his church to the refugees, and this seemed highly unlikely.

  Eventually, in sheer desperation, Wyatt wrote to the Kilmalie estate office in Edinburgh. He described the plight of the Highlanders and begged Charles Graham to use any influence he possessed to bring the clearances to an end.

  Wyatt doubted whether his letter would serve any useful purpose. The new Lord Kilmalie had given John Garrett unlimited powers to run the Eskaig estate, and the factor was using them to the full.

  John Garrett was also using far harsher tactics in his clearances than ever. Until recently it had been the practice to issue clearance warnings, giving tenants time to rid themselves of livestock and reap their crops. This had been discontinued. Most tenants were receiving no warning at all. The clearance note was served with immediate effect. Those who were slow to obey found their homes and possessions burning about them.

  With so much happening about Eskaig, Wyatt had not seen Mairi for many days. He could not justify leaving the crowded school for the time it would take to go into the mountains on a visit. There were persistent rumours that the Highlanders were preparing to fight back against the authorities. Wyatt wanted to be on hand in order to quash such foolishness before it involved the Army.

  One day, as Wyatt was trying to make room in the school for three more homeless families, Mairi came down from the mountains to find him.

  Surrounded by the bewildered crying children of the latest arrivals, Wyatt was crouching beside an elderly cottar woman, trying to explain why she had to give up some of the tiny floor-space previously allotted to her. His combination of firmness and cajoling achieved only partial success, but he gained enough floor-space for the mother and her smallest children to sit down.

  Straightening up, Wyatt found Mairi standing before him, cradling one of the youngest new arrivals in her arms. The families had spent the night in the open, on the mountains. The baby’s face still bore smudges from the smoke of its burning home and mud from the earth of the mountains, mixed together by tears and rubbed in with grubby fists.

  ‘I seem to have chosen a bad time to come and see you.’ Mairi’s smile was thin, and Wyatt thought she looked tired and pale.

  ‘There are no good times right now.’ Wyatt could not conceal his delight at seeing her. It was an unexpected bright spot in the increasing burden of misery descending upon him from the Highlands. ‘But any day when I can look at you has to be a good one.’ There were only three weeks to go before their planned wedding. This Sunday he would read out the first of their banns.

  Relieving Mairi of the child and passing it to its mother, Wyatt gripped Mairi’s arm and led her out through the back door of the schoolhouse. The kitchen garden was here, carefully and lovingly cultivated by Alasdair Burns. No one had been allotted camping-space here – yet. Overlooked by many cottar families all around, it lacked privacy, but at least it was possible to talk quietly without being overheard.

  ‘Is all well with you, Mairi? And the family … Tibbie?’

  ‘Tibbie’s recovered from the beating she took. For the rest of it … I don’t think she’ll ever forget.’ She hesitated a moment. ‘I don’t think Ian or Father is able to forget it, either. They both look upon it as a personal humiliation. An attack on their manhood. It doesn’t make it any easier for Tibbie.’

  ‘They’ve avenged any insult to the family honour. The whole of the Highlands is aware of it. We must hope the commanding officer of the Irish soldiers never learns what really happened, or regimental honour will become involved, too. We can do without that. Our only hope is that the clearances will end soon and the soldiers leave. Then perhaps people will be able to start piecing their lives together.’

  Mairi studied the ground at her feet intently. ‘Pa says the only way to get rid of the soldiers is to drive them out. To fight and beat them.’

  ‘That’s nonsense, Mairi. Dangerous nonsense. The days are long gone when the clans could rise and drive an English army from the Highlands. We have no clans any more. The old chiefs are gone – and the old clan loyalties. Most of the landowners are living in London, and half are English. We’ve grown weaker over the years, while the English hold has grown a thousand times stronger.’

  ‘Ma tried to tell Pa the same thing, but he won’t listen. He told her that if Wellington had accepted the odds against him the French would still be occupying Spain.’

  ‘What will he do? I’ve been hearing alarming rumours for days, but no one can tell me anything.’

  Mairi shook her head. ‘I don’t know. There are armed men coming and going at all hours of the day and night. I’m worried, Wyatt.’ Mairi suddenly looked desperately unhappy. ‘I want to marry you, Wyatt, but I can’t – not until things are more settled.’

  Her words filled Wyatt with alarm. ‘You mustn’t say that, Mairi. I need you. I need you far more than a man of God should ever need anyone. Things will be better soon, you’ll see.’

  Wyatt had never seen Mairi looking so upset, and he put an arm about her. ‘Come in the kitchen and have a hot drink. Evangeline’s in there trying to make a few fishes and a little bread go far enough to cure the hunger pangs of a whole multitude. Alasdair should be back soon. He’s gone off to the head of the loch to beg some salmon from the fishermen there….’

  Inside the kitchen Evangeline took one look at Mairi’s taut tired face and produced a cup of tea so quickly it might have been awaiting the Highland girl’s arrival.

  ‘I’ve just this minute made this. Have you come down to settle your wedding arrangements with Wyatt? The whole village is looking forward to the great day….’ The old animosity between the two women had long since disappeared.

  Mairi shook her head. ‘There can be no wedding. Not just yet.’

  ‘What you mean is until my father brings the clearances to an end?’ Evangeline spoke with great bitterness. ‘I wish I could tell you there would be no more, but he refuses to discuss it with me. I’ve tried ranting, reason and weeping. I’ve begged him to come here and see for himself what his clearances are doing, in the hope it might change his ways. He won’t listen to me, or to anyone else. Clearing the Kilmalie lands has become an obsession with him.’

  ‘Then, there’s little hope of our croft being left alone?’ Mairi asked the question in a flat resigned voice that
Wyatt found distressing.

  ‘If I could give you some hope….’ Evangeline left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘The soldiers are killing livestock, too, wherever they find them, so the cottars will have no excuse for returning to the mountains. I’ve said I’ll take the cattle to the shielings; they should be safe there.’

  ‘You’ll not go to the shielings – even if you take all your brothers along to guard you. Not after what happened to Tibbie.’ Wyatt was aghast at the thought of Mairi taking cattle to the lonely Highland glens. There would have been safety in the numbers to be found at the shielings in previous seasons. This year there were few tenants left, and Irish soldiers were roaming the hills.

  ‘The soldiers who attacked Tibbie were deserters … renegades. You said so yourself, and they’ll attack no one again.’

  ‘There are others. The shielings are no place for a young girl.’

  ‘Wyatt’s right—’ Whatever else Evangeline was going to say was lost as those in the kitchen heard a commotion outside and a young voice calling for ‘the minister’.

  Wyatt had almost reached the door when it crashed open. Young Ewan Munro stumbled on the doorstep and fell headlong inside the kitchen.

  The dishevelled boy scrambled to his feet and clutched at Wyatt’s coat. ‘Minister, Mr Burns says to tell you to come … come quickly! The soldiers are on their way to our place.’

  Ewan Munro was gasping for breath. He had been running as fast as his legs would carry him, but there was more to be said.

  ‘Pa’s sick again, but he’s got his knife.’ Ewan’s voice broke. ‘He … he says he’ll die before the factor puts us out again.’

  Forty-five

  THE FISHERMEN AT the north-west end of Loch Eil lived on the opposite bank of the loch from Kilmalie lands. They were not affected by John Garrett’s clearance plans. All the same, their sympathies lay with the dispossessed Highlanders. When Alasdair Burns asked them to sell some of their catch to help feed the many homeless families occupying the Eskaig school and churchyard, they offered him as much of their catch as he could carry, and would not accept payment. Salmon was food for servants and fisherfolk. There was no money to be made from such fish, and they had netted more than they would use.

  The fishermen provided Alasdair Burns with an old piece of fishing-net in which to carry the salmon, but while they were tying it together one of the fishermen suddenly said: ‘You’d better be taking an extra fish, Teacher. It looks as though the Army is on its way to burn out another poor soul.’

  Alasdair Burns looked to where the fisherman was pointing and saw a single file of scarlet-uniformed men making their way down a mountain slope towards the comparatively flat ground at the head of Loch Eil. They had come from Fort William through the glens that cut deep into the mountains, north of Eskaig.

  At first, Alasdair Burns thought the soldiers might be making for the road, in order to return to Fort William through Eskaig. However, before they reached level ground the soldiers changed direction. They were still descending, but were now heading away from Eskaig and Loch Ell. They were still about their despicable business – and the only croft in the direction they were taking belonged to Lachlan Munro.

  ‘Damn them for the villains they are. They’re on their way to dispossess a sick man. I’ll be back for the fish later. I’m going to see if I can stop them.’

  Alasdair Burns set off at speed, hopping in an ungainly manner on his one good leg and the wooden stump. Behind him there was a brief flurry of conversation between the half-dozen or so fishermen. Hastily covering the fish to prevent wheeling gulls from stealing them, they hurried after Alasdair Burns.

  The home of Lachlan Munro was no more than a mile away. Alasdair Burns reached it while the soldiers were still making their way from the mountains. His first action was to send Ewan Munro to Eskaig to inform Wyatt of what was about to happen.

  Next Alasdair Burns urged Elsa Munro to remove as many of her belongings as possible from the house and hide them in the bushes. The evicted tenants who had found their way to the schoolhouse in Eskaig had reported that the soldiers were no longer giving the Highlanders time to remove their possessions. An armful of clothes and hastily snatched-up pots and pans were all most had been able to bring out before lighted torches were thrown inside the cot and greedy flames swallowed up everything a Highland woman held dear.

  Lachlan Munro was helped outside from his sick bed, protesting he would not be dispossessed by a bunch of ‘Irish thugs’.

  The ex-soldier was a very sick man. Laid low so often with the fever he had contracted in Africa, Lachlan Munro had fallen victim to a wasting lung disease. Never a large man, he was now little more than skin and bone, and acutely aware of his lack of strength.

  ‘Just come and sit over here, and keep out of trouble.’ Alasdair Burns was a bluff direct man, but he spoke as soothingly as he knew how to Lachlan Munro. ‘We can always find a new home for you, but these pretty little girls of yours have only one father.’

  The Kilmalie factor was not with the men coming to evict the Munro family. The clearance order was in the hands of a constable from Fort William, and he had an escort of twenty soldiers from the Irish infantry regiment.

  While the party was still on high ground they could see the activity about the Munro cot, and the constable correctly guessed the reason. Serving clearance orders on hapless Highlanders was not to the law officer’s liking. He suggested the soldiers rest as soon as they reached level ground. It would give the Munro family extra time to clear their belongings.

  It also meant that Wyatt, Evangeline and Mairi, accompanied by a number of dispossessed cottars from the school, had time to reach the scene.

  They arrived soon after the constable had served the clearance order on Lachlan Munro, but before the lighted torches held by two of the soldiers had been applied to the cot.

  Alasdair Burns was haranguing the constable and his escort with some success, and the sergeant in charge of the party had not yet given the order to fire the building.

  With the arrival of a hostile and vociferous crowd of Highlanders, the uncertainty of the Fort William constable grew. The Irish sergeant had more experience in dealing with hostile crowds and he ordered his soldiers to fix bayonets and face towards the newcomers.

  Alasdair Burns was not pleased to see Evangeline among the new arrivals, but he did not allow it to halt his rhetoric. He pointed to her companions as an example of the numbers of ordinary people made homeless by the Army and the authorities they were supporting.

  The teacher’s argument began to excite the homeless cottars, and the constable from Fort William became increasingly concerned. In sharp contrast, the Irish sergeant viewed the Highlanders with a calm disdain. He would be the man to make a decision, and it was to him that Wyatt directed his appeal.

  ‘You’ve carried out your duty, Sergeant. The constable has served the clearance notice. Why don’t you take your men on now, before there’s trouble?’

  The sergeant was aware from Wyatt’s mode of dress that he was a minister, but the soldier had little time for representatives of any church.

  ‘I don’t need a preacher telling me how to carry out my duties. If there’s going to be trouble, it will come as a result of the one-legged man. He’s making your people excited with his talk. When he fastens his lip I’ll put a torch to the cot and we’ll be on our way – unless you have something else planned?’

  ‘My concern is for Lachlan Munro and his young family. He’s a sick man, Sergeant. He was an army man, too, with the Seventy-Second Regiment until he was struck down with fever in Natal – a sergeant, like yourself.’

  The Irish sergeant cast a quick glance to where Lachlan Munro sat propped against a low wall, head back, talking softly to his son.

  ‘He has my sympathy. A brave man deserves something better than a lingering death. But he’ll be the first to understand I’m merely doing my duty. No more, and no less.’

  ‘You’ve done your duty.
The constable has served the notice. Won’t you just leave now, without firing the cot?’

  ‘My colonel’s orders are to burn every cot as soon as a clearance order is served. There’s to be no reoccupation. These people are lucky to have had so long to clear their belongings. Had the colonel been here today, everything would have gone up in flames within a minute of the order being served. As it is, I think it’s high time I took my men back to barracks.’

  Without any further warning, the sergeant signalled to the two men who held the flaming torches. Acknowledging his command, the two men turned towards the cot. One man threw his torch high on the thatched roof. For a moment it seemed the burning brand would roll back down to earth, but it caught in a piece of protruding twig, and flames began to eat into the thick thatch.

  The second man went to the open door and threw his torch into a corner where the three youngest Munro girls had shared a dry-heather bed. There was a momentary lull, and then the heather ignited with a great roar. Seconds later flames were licking up through the roof.

  As the crowd watched in momentary awe, a distraction came from an unexpected direction. The soldiers were keeping the crowd well clear of the house, but Lachlan’s position was to the side and slightly behind their line. He suddenly emerged out of the smoke billowing downwards from the roof. He was weaving an erratic course, and it was not immediately certain where he was heading.

  The Irish sergeant did not wait to find out. Pushing two of his soldiers aside, he darted between them and held out an arm to bar Lachlan Munro’s path.

  ‘Come on, old soldier. There’s nothing for you in there now. Take your family off somewhere and make a new life—’

  He never finished the sentence. Lachlan Munro closed with the Irish sergeant, there was a flash of bright steel and the sergeant reeled back, one hand clutching his stomach. It was a cut, not a stab wound, but there was sufficient blood in evidence to make it appear far worse than it really was.