'We don't want charity!' Eliza protested swiftly. Though necessity had forced them to work together, she could still be touchy with him and Flora at times.
'No charity. A loan, if necessary. And when we are settled in lodgings, if any of you who can't write need letters written, to tell your families what has happened, I'll do that for you.'
As the group settled for sleep that night, Flora commented softly that they seemed much calmer. 'It's almost as though some of them are actually looking forward to a new life.'
'They've had time to get over the shock of being evicted,' Jamie said with a sigh. 'Most of them realise they can't go back. Highland folk are sensible, and I hope they'll look forward. But you, sweetheart, how have you felt these past days? You haven't complained of being ill.'
'I've been too busy to feel ill,' Flora told him. 'The nausea is there, all the time, but nothing else.'
'All the same, six or more weeks at sea while you're carrying a child isn't likely to be easy. Would you like to wait until after your lying-in?'
'That would delay us for almost a year,' Flora said, shaking her head. 'The child's due before Christmas, which gives us five months. Long enough for a crossing, surely! But if we don't go soon we wouldn't be able to sail until the spring next year. Besides, you are responsible for the others. You have to go if you mean to rent land to them.'
'Are you sure?'
'Of course. And I'd prefer us all to go together. If we go on different ships we might never find one another again when we arrived. And we have to help them.'
'Then so be it. If we're lucky with a ship we'll be in Canada well before winter comes.'
***
A few days later Flora was wishing she could be back on the cart, even though the slow journey from the glen had seemed endless. The travellers had separated on reaching the town, with tearful farewells. Many had never before left the glen, or been only a few miles from it. For them the sight of the rapidly expanding sprawl of Glasgow, the noise and smoke and smells, had been frightening. There seemed to be a perpetual cloud hovering over the town, and the very air was thick with dust.
Their few remaining beasts had been sold, and the owners were horrified at the low prices they received.
'They're cheating us, they know we cannot keep them in the town,' they complained to Jamie.
He could do nothing.
'They're so thin they're not worth keeping,' he was told. 'The cows are all dry, they're only fit for leather.'
The families intending to sail for Nova Scotia had managed to find rooms, one for each family, near to the docks and close to one another. Bruce and his children were in the same house as Flora, and Meg spent most of her time helping to look after the children. The rents were high, the conditions poor, since the owners of these lodging houses knew the emigrants had little choice. Everyone was eager to find a ship as soon as possible, and sighed with relief when the agent Jamie consulted said one was due to sail in a matter of days. Jamie and some of the men inspected it, and booked passages.
'It's not a luxurious ship, but to find another we'd have to wait much longer, which the people can't afford to do, or travel further to Greenock or cross over to Dunoon. And then they might be no better. But I've booked cabins for us, and for Bruce and his family. They are reasonable.'
'He insisted, though I'd happily have gone steerage,' Bruce said.
'Cabins?' Flora asked. 'But where will the others be? Don't we all have cabins?'
'There are only a few, and they cost much more than steerage.'
'Won't it make the others jealous?' Flora asked.
'They'll accept it. I'm tacksman still, in their eyes, and even if they don't like it, you will have as much comfort as I can provide.'
Flora was unconvinced, but there was little she could do. 'Who else will be sailing with us?'
'There are other families from Ross, I think, and other parts of the Highlands. We are not the only ones to have been evicted. The captain's a Frenchman, Pierre Duclos. He says this is the best time of year to be crossing.'
'French? Oh, I suppose a lot of French settled there before the British claimed it,' Bruce nodded.
'But we're at war with the French,' Malcolm said indignantly. 'The English even have an army in Portugal now, fighting Napoleon.'
'From what I've heard they all live peacefully together,' Jamie tried to reassure him. 'I don't expect the settlers will begin fighting over what's happening in Europe.'
'We're more likely to fight the Americans, if they refuse to trade with us,' Bruce said.
'We're entitled to search their ships!' Malcolm retorted. 'If Englishmen try to avoid fighting that upstart Bonaparte by pretending to be Americans, we're entitled to fetch them back!'
'I didn't know you were interested in what happens in France?' his father said, surprised.
'No. Well, I didn't know anything about it before, but I've been talking to some of the men round the docks,' Malcolm said. 'And they showed me some of the pamphlets.'
'Pity I taught you to read. Your mother said it would only lead to trouble.'
Malcolm flung away and Bruce shrugged. 'Boys! Thinking they're men. What can I do to help you, Jamie?'
'Go and bargain for our provisions. I'm taking Flora and the girls to stay for a night with one of my old friends. We'll make out lists of what we need first, though.'
Jamie spent the next two days consulting with some of the merchants and made lists of what supplies they would need, mainly food for the voyage.
'If ye mean to farm, take your tools,' he was advised.
Then, leaving Bruce to organise it all, he hired a carriage and he and Flora were driven southwards, to a large house owned by one of Jamie's friends from schooldays.
***
'Robert inherited from his father ten years ago,' Jamie explained. 'He was wild then, as I was. We went to London together, when we were supposed to be studying at the university. My family threatened, but I did not heed them. I had no wish to plod along making textiles. My brothers could do that.'
'Robert is wealthy, then?'
'Very. His father made money by importing tobacco and cotton. But I had only what I could win by my wits.'
'You told me you won money at cards.'
'I had luck, but also skill. I concentrated on games where I could estimate the odds. No depending on pure chance, which is a sure way to lose fortunes.'
Flora was intrigued. She had not previously asked Jamie a great deal about his early life. As well as Arabella, she had once heard two of her aunt's friends discussing the other girls who had been the objects of his attention, and she had preferred not to know about them.
'Did you not feel guilty, winning money from other men?' she asked now.
'I only ever won from men who could afford to lose,' Jamie said, kissing her. 'I did not play with poor men. Once or twice I even lost to men who were in more desperate straits than I was.'
The house where they were to stay was the largest Flora had ever seen, a long, low building with many windows in the flat frontage, and a huge pillared portico big enough for their carriage to roll to a halt beneath it.
Robert and Elizabeth Kennedy welcomed them warmly, a friendly girl took the children to the nursery to play with their host's own three little ones, while Flora and Jamie were shown to their rooms and changed for dinner.
Wearing another of her Edinburgh dresses, this time primrose silk with a spider gauze shawl, her pearls, and a diamond ring Jamie had given her on Jenny's birth, Flora decided to revel in the luxury. It could be years before she enjoyed it again, since conditions in Canada were bound to be primitive.
The dinner was elegant, more so than in most of the Edinburgh houses she'd known, and their host and hostess warm and friendly. It was after the second course had been put on the table that Elizabeth turned impulsively to Jamie, and chuckled.
'You might meet the fair Arabella if you travel as far as Quebec,' she said lightly. 'Did you know she married a Captain in th
e army, and his regiment is stationed out there now?'
Flora cast a sidelong glance at Jamie. His cheeks had flushed slightly, but he replied to Elizabeth composedly enough.
'I heard she'd married, but not who,' he said. 'Everyone seems to be heading for Canada. When will you two be sailing?'
Elizabeth shuddered. 'Never. I cannot set foot on even a ferry boat before I feel ill. I do so admire your courage, Flora. You'll have to come back and visit us in a few years.'
Flora tried to sound as light-hearted. 'Let me get to the far side safely first, and then I might be able to face a return journey.'
The rest of the visit passed off without further mention of Arabella, and Flora restrained herself from asking Jamie. Had he known where she was? Had he forgotten Arabella, or did he, perhaps, regret having married her and abandoning his social life with elegant, sophisticated people such as the Kennedys? Hard physical labour on the croft, and now facing unknown dangers and hardships on the sea and in Nova Scotia, could not have been easy for one who had been familiar with the drawing rooms of both England's and Scotland's most important families.
***
Rather to her relief they could spare no more than one night away, and were back in Glasgow by mid-afternoon. Assembling their provisions in such a limited time was an enormous task, and Jamie had no energy to do more than kiss the children and fall into bed each night. Flora, lying wakeful thinking of Arabella, and the new life they faced, heard him muttering in his sleep as his restless mind went over and over the lists, making sure they had everything.
One day Flora took Meg and the children down to the wharf to watch the ship unload her cargo of timber. Others of the intending emigrants were there too.
Meg stared at it in horror. 'Is that it?' she demanded. 'It's so small! Surely it will never be able to cross the ocean!'
Flora was equally aghast. She swallowed hard. 'It came from Canada, from Halifax, I think Jamie said,' she replied faintly.
'It will toss about like a leaf! Look at how it's moving now, when it's in the river and tied to the land!'
'Thousands of other people have crossed the Atlantic before us,' Flora reminded her.
'How many have drowned?'
Suddenly, a few yards away, a commotion broke out. Flora looked over at a group of people, where an elderly woman was screaming and struggling to escape from the grip of a younger one, so like her she must be her daughter.
'Mother, it will be fine once we're at sea,' the younger woman was saying, but her mother began to sob hysterically.
'I won't set foot on that thing! Ye dragged me here, but I won't go no further.'
'We've paid your passage!' a man said angrily.
'I gave ye the money for it! I'd rather starve in Glasgow than trust myself to that rowing boat!'
She was immune to all arguments, and finally managed to break away and run stumblingly along the wharf. Her daughter started after her, but the man caught her arm and dragged her back.
'Let the old fool go! No doubt she'll be back in the morn, when she's come to her senses.'
'But if she doesn't, I may never see her again! I know she's a fool, but she's my mother! And I didn't want to go either, it was you forced me.'
Flora sighed. So many partings, so many families torn apart, and all because the lairds wanted higher rents to pay for their fine clothes and houses in London, competing with the English lords and ladies.
Though she tried to hide her trepidation from the others, Flora became increasingly nervous as the day for departure drew near. On the last day, as she was packing their possessions ready for taking aboard the following morning, she heard raised voices in the room next door.
'You'll do nothing of the sort!' Bruce roared, and a moment later Meg crept into the room, looking frightened.
'What's your father angry about?' Flora asked.
Meg took a deep breath. 'It's Malcolm. He says he doesn't want to come with us.'
'It's rather late to change his mind now.'
'He says if he can't fight the lairds like Gordon did he wants to join the army.'
'The army? Gordon? What do you mean?'
Meg looked confused. 'I didn't mean to say that. Malcolm wants to fight Napoleon. He came back just now and said he'd met another boy who was enlisting. He wants to go with him. He says he doesn't want to be a farmer.'
'But he's too young!'
'He's seventeen, almost eighteen.'
Flora looked surprised. 'Yes, he is. I'd forgotten. But his passage is booked. Your father won't let him go, don't worry. Now what did you mean about Gordon? Did you mean your father's cousin?'
'Yes. No. That is – he's not Dad's cousin, but they were always friends. Dad would have fought with him if it hadn't been for us, and Mom.'
Flora sighed. 'You'd better tell me,' she said gently.
Meg shook her head. 'You'll tell Jamie, and then – then Gordon will be arrested again.'
'Arrested? What has he done? Meg, if you don't tell me I'll have to tell Jamie, don't you see?'
It took time and patience, but eventually, after Flora bowed to Meg's frantic pleadings not to tell Jamie until the ship was at sea, Meg explained.
'Gordon's real name is MacLeod. He was one of the men who fought the men who came to evict us. He was taken, captured, and put in prison. We all thought he'd hang.'
'Why didn't he?' Flora asked, thinking back to Gordon's first appearance in the glen. If he'd been in prison it explained his pale skin and thin body.
'It was the night before the trial, and Gordon and two men with him found their cell door had been left unlocked. They just walked out.'
Flora stared at her. 'Warders don't just forget to lock cell doors.'
'No, but Gordon thought one of the warders was sympathetic, and did it on purpose. He knew Dad had cousins in Argyle, and he eventually found us. He was almost dead, he'd had to hide all the way, he didn't dare do into any of the towns in case he was recognised. Don't you think he was splendid?'
'He's put you all into danger,' Flora pointed out. 'You, or at least your father, could go to prison for helping him.'
'Dad felt so helpless, he wasn't able to stop us being evicted. He said this was one way we could all defeat the lairds a little. Promise you won't betray us!'
Flora sighed. 'Of course I won't.' Fortunately, she thought, they would be aboard in two days.
She soon forgot, in the more immediate problems. The argument between Bruce and Malcolm rumbled on all day, and Bruce demanded that Flora talk sense to Malcolm.
'I can't bear to lose him as well as Margaret,' he said, slumping down on the bench in their poorly furnished lodging.
She went to find Malcolm, who was sitting morosely on a wall outside the house, kicking pebbles and glowering at anyone who approached him.
'Your father's very unhappy,' she told him, sitting on the wall beside him. 'And he's already paid the deposit for your passage, he'll have to pay the rest whether you come or not.'
'I told him I didn't want to come, so it's his fault if he loses the money. It's my life, and I don't want to go to Canada.'
'If you're set on being a soldier, there's an army there. At least come with us and see what it's like,' she urged him.
'There's no battles there, and in Portugal it's going to be exciting, real fighting.'
'Do you want to get killed? Do you want to make your father and Meg suffer more than they already have done, losing your mother?'
He shrugged. 'It's my life,' he repeated. 'If everyone thought like you Napoleon could just walk into England, then Scotland, and it would be far worse than having to leave the glen.'
Eventually she persuaded him to come back inside and join them for a meal. 'We have to get up early in the morning,' she reminded him. 'There's all our goods, food and stores, to be taken on board.'
Awkwardly he put his arm round her, and she was surprised to find he was taller than she was by an inch. 'Sorry, Flora. I don't want to upset everyone.'
&n
bsp; ***
The men expected to be busy all day loading stores onto the ship. Flora was startled when, an hour after they'd left, Jamie came storming back into the lodging house where she and Meg were packing the last few items.
'That confounded man!' he raged, flinging himself onto the bench.
'Who? Jamie, what's happened?' Flora demanded. Had he discovered about Gordon?
'The captain. Unfortunately,' he mimicked in an atrocious French accent, 'ze cabins were booked twice by ze agent, and ze other family arrived first. I don't believe him! They came and offered him more money.'
'Our cabins?' Flora asked. 'Jamie, does that mean we can't go?'
'We can, as a special privilege, go with the other steerage passengers,' Jamie said savagely. 'He won't repay the difference in price, he says that is a matter for the agent. And he, damn him, is safely in Edinburgh. But I can't make you and the children endure living in such cramped conditions, Flora!'
She sighed. 'I said I'd prefer to travel with the others, and I don't want to stay here any longer! You know how I hate towns, and if I had to wait months more, which is possible, and then travel without any of our friends, I don't know how I'd endure it.'
They argued, but eventually Flora persuaded him, and he went back to the boat to see to the stowing of their goods.
It was late when Flora fell asleep that night. Apprehension about the journey in that incredibly small ship, sorrow at leaving her homeland, fear of what they would find in Canada, guilt that she had not told Jamie about Gordon, all the uncertainties about their future filled her mind and prevented sleep for many hours. It seemed only a minute after she finally slept before she was awoken by a thundering on their door.
'What is it?' Jamie called, and yawned.
'Bruce. Is Malcolm with you?'
'Malcolm? No.'
Jamie threw his plaid round him and went to the door. Bruce came in, wild-eyed, a fearful Meg sliding through the doorway after him.
'That damned whelp! He's taken his bundle and he crept away in the night.'
'Gone? But I thought he'd agreed not to.'
To A Far Country Page 7