Mr Sinclair then asked what I would think if he proposed that at trial we entered a plea of not guilty. I replied that it was an absurd idea as it was quite clear that I was guilty and had never made any attempt to conceal the fact. Mr Sinclair then explained to me that in the eyes of the law, in order for a crime to be committed there must be both a physical act and a mental act. It was clear, he said, that in this case there was a physical act, but whether there was a mental act – an evil intention, he called it – was a matter which concerned the contents of my mind. I listened courteously to Mr Sinclair’s earnest summary, feeling increasingly that it was sometimes the case that in his mania to employ his great cleverness he quite disregarded the most obvious facts. However, I responded only that I did not see how anything he had said had any bearing on the present case.
Mr Sinclair then adopted a tone which suggested that he did not wish to injure my feelings. ‘What if it was suggested that what you believe to have been in your mind at that time was not what was actually in your mind?’ he said.
I laughed quite rudely at this silliness. ‘If something else was in my mind, then I would surely have known it,’ I said. ‘Otherwise it could not have been in my mind.’
Mr Sinclair smiled at my response and tipped his head to one side as if to concede the point. He told me that I was a very clever young man. I confess I was flattered by this pronouncement and I blush at recording it here.
He continued, ‘Do you think it is possible, Roddy, for a madman to think that he is of sound mind?’
This proposition initially seemed equally as absurd as his previous statement, but then I thought of Murdo Cock, the imbecile of Aird-Dubh, who was often known to sleep in his hen house and crow like a rooster. Would he, if asked, answer that he was insane? I realised that Mr Sinclair, in his delicate manner, was suggesting that I, in my own way, was like Murdo Cock. I took some moments to respond, realising that I might indeed appear the maniac if I answered intemperately.
‘I can assure you,’ I said in a measured tone, ‘that I am fully in possession of my faculties.’
‘It is precisely the fact that you believe that to be true which suggests the opposite,’ he replied. I must have seemed quite offended by this statement, as he then added, ‘You must understand, Roderick, that it is my duty to examine all possible avenues for your defence.’
‘But I have no wish to defend myself,’ I blurted out, immediately regretting the rudeness of my interruption.
Mr Sinclair nodded briefly and stood up. He looked a little sad and I felt that I hurt his feelings and wished to make amends.
‘All the same,’ he said, ‘I wonder if you might consent to being examined by a gentleman who is most eager to make your acquaintance.’
I was struck once again by the absurdity of the situation in which, by virtue of making a murderer of myself, gentlemen now sought out my company, but I replied simply that I would be happy to meet whomsoever he pleased.
‘Good,’ he said, and with that he made his usual sign for the gaoler to release him.
* * *
A few days after the sea-ware incident I met Flora Broad for a second time. I was sitting on the dyke that separates the crofting land from the road, teasing some crows by means of a mouse tied to a length of string. My back was to the village so I was unaware of Flora approaching. She must have seen that I was engaged in a game of some kind because when she appeared beside me she asked what I was playing. I felt ashamed to be engaged in such a childish pursuit so I let the string drop from my fingers and said that I was not doing anything.
‘It seems that you are always busy doing nothing,’ she replied. ‘The Devil will find work for your idle hands.’
‘And what work would that be?’ I said.
Flora shrugged her shoulders and cast her eyes skywards. She sat down next to me on the dyke. She was carrying a basket covered with a checked cloth, and this she set on her lap. Her skirts brushed against my leg. A few moments later the string I had dropped snaked its way through the grass and a crow hopped away with the prize between its beak.
‘Are you not afraid your father might see us?’ I asked.
‘It is you that should be afraid,’ she said, ‘as it is not me that will receive the thrashing.’
Nevertheless, she glanced over her shoulder towards her house.
‘I am taking these eggs to Mrs MacLeod in Aird-Dubh,’ she said, lifting the cloth to show me the contents of the basket. The Broad Mackenzies kept a fearful number of hens, so many that they were able to supply eggs to the inn at Applecross. Mrs MacLeod was an ancient widow known as the Onion on account of the great number of layers of clothing she wore. It was said that since her husband died she had not once cast off a garment.
Flora asked if I would like to accompany her and I said that I would be glad to. She walked so slowly that I had to pause every few yards to let her catch up. When we reached the junction of the road to Aird-Dubh, Flora asked if I would carry her basket. I took it from her and from that point she walked a little faster, as if it had been the weight of the eggs which had been slowing her down.
‘How is the patient?’ she asked.
I had that morning found the fledgling dead on the floor of the barn beneath the rafter. Flora looked quite sad and said that she was sorry to hear this news.
‘It is one of these things God sends to try us,’ she said in a sing-song voice.
I looked at her sideways. It was an oft-expressed sentiment in our parts.
‘I cannot imagine that God has no greater concerns than trying us,’ I said.
Flora looked at me quite earnestly.
‘Then why do such things happen?’ she said.
‘What things?’ I said.
‘Bad things.’
‘The minister would say that it is to punish us for wickedness,’ I said.
‘And what would you say?’ she asked.
I hesitated a moment and then said, ‘I would say that they happen for no reason.’
Flora did not appear unduly disturbed by my answer and I took encouragement from this. ‘I do not see that God is much concerned with me, or with any of us for that matter,’ I went on.
Flora told me that I should not say such things, but I did not feel that she disagreed with me, only that it was wrong to utter such thoughts.
‘Maybe God is just a story like the ones Mr Gillies used to tell us in school,’ I said, glancing at Flora out of the corner of my eye. The breeze blew a wisp of hair across her forehead and she raised her hand to her face to arrange it behind her ear. She looked straight ahead and we continued our walk in silence.
When we reached Aird-Dubh, Flora took the basket from me and put her head inside the door of the Onion’s house. A bent old woman appeared at the threshold. Her neck was so twisted she had to turn her head to the side, like a hen, to squint up at our faces. It was a warm evening and there was a good fire roaring in the house, but she wore a thick overcoat buttoned up to her neck and tied for good measure around her midriff with a length of string. She seemed pleased to see Flora and invited her into the house. Flora said she had brought some eggs and handed her the basket.
‘And who is this you have with you?’ she said.
‘It’s John Black’s boy,’ Flora said.
‘And does he have a name?’ Her voice was harsh as a gull’s.
‘It’s Roddy,’ said Flora.
The Onion peered at me for some moments and then told me she was sorry for my mother’s passing, even though it had been over a year. She took the basket from Flora and disappeared into the smoky gloom of the house. Flora quietly hummed a song to herself while we waited, and I was reminded of my mother singing in the fields. The old woman returned with the empty basket and thanked Flora for the eggs.
On the way back to Culduie, I offered to once again carry the basket, but Flora explained that it h
ad not been that the basket was burdensome, only that she wished to have me carry it for her. In any case, relieved of the eggs, our conversation was freer. Flora made some disparaging remarks about how Mrs MacLeod smelt and I told her that my father did not like the inhabitants of Aird-Dubh because they were filthy and ate limpets. Flora laughed gaily at this. When her laughter subsided she said, ‘Sometimes I think your father does not like anyone.’
‘He doesn’t,’ I replied.
I then bent over and mimicked my father hobbling along with his stick. ‘Be sure your sins will find you out,’ I muttered, wagging a crooked finger in Flora’s face. ‘You’re on the path to the eternal bonfire, young lady!’
Flora stopped in the road, putting her free hand to her mouth to cover her laughter. Then I straightened up, suddenly ashamed to have ridiculed my father in this way.
‘Do it again,’ she said, but I felt foolish and continued along the road.
When we reached the junction where we had met, in order that we might not be seen I told Flora I would continue along the road. She did not protest. We stood looking at each other for a few moments. Then she said that we might see each other again some other evening and turned and walked up the track, swinging her empty basket in her hand. I made my way along the road and climbed the dyke at the foot of our croft, feeling quite light, as if I had, all of a sudden, been unburdened of a basket of peats. As I made my way through our sickly crops I saw Jetta hurrying along the track from the direction of Lachlan Broad’s house, a scarf pulled over her hair and hunched over like a widow. I could not think what business might have taken her to the lower end of the village and waited outside the house for her, but she scurried past me without a glance.
Father was in his chair by the window smoking his evening pipe. I fully expected him to question me about my whereabouts and he duly did so. His chair was angled somewhat away from the window, so that the squib of light from the portal illuminated his text. As he could easily have seen us part at the junction, I told him straightaway that I had been to Aird-Dubh with Flora Broad to deliver some eggs. My father asked who the eggs were for. I could not see what difference it made who the eggs were for, but I told him that too. He made no reaction to my answers, which convinced me that he already knew perfectly well where I had been, and had only enquired to see whether I would tell the truth. He took a couple of pulls on his pipe. Jetta had taken up her knitting and pretended to be oblivious to our dialogue.
I felt aggrieved that I should be questioned this way, particularly as Jetta had received no similar interrogation. My father took his pipe from his mouth and said that he did not wish me to associate with Flora Broad or any other members of her family. I was not in the habit of answering back to my father, but on this occasion I did so. Flora, I told him, had not caused him any injury and she had been grateful to me for carrying her basket. I did not expect my father to engage in a discussion with me and nor did he. Instead, he reminded me that I was not too old for a thrashing. I cast my eyes towards the floor in a semblance of contrition, but I had no intention of obeying his decree. This was far from the first occasion that I felt my father to be overly strict towards myself or my siblings, but it was the first time I resolved to defy him. With the benefit of hindsight, however, I am forced to admit that it would have been prudent to heed his advice.
I went outside and sat on the bench, hoping that my sister would join me, but she did not do so. The following morning, when Father was out of the house, I asked Jetta where she had been the previous evening. She replied without looking up from her chores that she had been visiting Carmina Smoke. I knew that this was not true, as she had come from beyond the Smoke’s house, but I did not say so. Instead I asked if Kenny Smoke had been home. Jetta stopped what she was doing and fixed me with a serious stare.
‘I already have one father,’ she said. ‘I do not need another. There are some things which do not concern you, Roddy.’ She then handed me a bannock and ordered me out from under her feet. I felt quite sad as I had never known Jetta to keep a secret from me, although had she been in the habit of doing so, I would hardly have known about it. Perhaps she kept all sorts of secrets from me.
I did not see Flora Broad for some days after this. I was occupied labouring on Lachlan Broad’s schemes and in the evenings Father invented tasks for me to do when there were none. I do not know whether this was intended as punishment or merely a measure to keep me from seeing Flora. In any case, it achieved its purpose. When my father had finally done with me, I sat three evenings on the dyke, hoping that Flora would pass by on some errand, or on seeing me there invent some pretext for doing so. But she did not come and I confess that despite the small amount of time we had passed together, I found myself yearning for her company.
It was around this time that I took to travelling abroad at night. Sleep no longer came easily to me and even when I drifted off I was awoken by the slightest stirring of the twins or of an animal outside. In the quiet of the night, all sorts of visions summon themselves from the embers of the fire or the lowing of a stirk. I sometimes fancied that I saw figures rising from the smoke, or heard some voice outside whispering to me, and I would lie on my bunk in a state of fearfulness, awaiting the arrival of some horror. I thus took to forsaking my bed and wandering the hills. I imagined myself as one of my own visions, a shape half-seen in the murk, glimpsed from the corner of one’s eye before being dismissed as a fancy. My habit was to disappear between the gables of houses, climb some distance onto the Càrn and gaze down upon the township. In the yellow months, the nights here are never properly dark. The world appears instead as if all colour has been drained from it, and when the moon is high, everything is silver, as if rendered in the etching of a book. If I found myself close to the windows of my neighbours, I would gaze enviously at the slumbering bodies. My object in these excursions was only to empty my mind of uninvited thoughts, and this I achieved by roaming the hills to the point of exhaustion. Not wishing anyone to know of my nocturnal activities, I always returned before my father or sister rose in the morning and would spend the ensuing day in a state of light-headedness. I once or twice fell asleep where I was working, causing Jetta to think I had fainted and come running to my aid.
I determined to use one such nocturnal jaunt to establish whether Flora had returned to the Big House. While I longed to see her, I hoped that she was once again in Lord Middleton’s employ, and was thus not avoiding my company of her own volition. On this particular night the moon was obscured by clouds and emitted only the weakest glow. I made my way between the outbuildings and climbed some way up the Càrn. The nature of my mission made me all the more anxious to remain unobserved. I placed my feet soundlessly on the ground and kept my back stooped until I was out of sight of the village. I then traversed the hillside until I was beyond the point where the Broads’ house lay. I had never once encountered any more than a sheep on my excursions, but now the blood coursed in my temples. Even in daylight, I dreaded setting foot on Lachlan Broad’s property, but to do so under the cover of darkness was an altogether more forbidding prospect. If discovered, I could hardly state the motive for my presence there. Ever since I was a child I have found it hard to dissemble. Once when I was five or six years old, I was sent to the barn to fetch the eggs. I neglected to take the bowl we used for this purpose and rather than retrace my steps to the house, I decided that there was no need of it. I collected the eggs and as I left the barn with them piled in my hands, a bird flew up, startling me and causing me to drop my load. I stared at the mess of albumen and yolk on the ground and immediately the thought came to me to claim that I disturbed a tinker stealing our eggs. When my mother came to look for me, however, I merely burst into tears and told her I had dropped the eggs because I had forgotten to bring the bowl. She took pity on me, wiped away my tears and told me there was no harm in it, there would be more eggs tomorrow. Later when we sat down for our meal, she told my father that there had been no eggs
that day and winked at me. I could not, however, count on Lachlan Broad similarly taking pity on me if he were to disturb me lurking behind his house in the dead of night.
Nevertheless, having set my course, I felt compelled to see it to its conclusion. As I made my way down the hillside I struck upon an idea. I had heard tales of those who rise unconscious from their sleep and move about the world as if they are fully awake. Yet, when addressed, they are quite unseeing, as though there is another reality before their eyes. These are the somnambulists and I resolved that, were I to be apprehended, this would be my defence: I would be a somnambulist. In this spirit I approached the dwelling quite unguarded. I was not familiar with the layout of the house, but as there were two small windows in the rear wall, I supposed that these must be the sleeping quarters. To my surprise there was a faint glow in the second of the windows, and I pictured Flora there in her nightclothes, waiting for me by candlelight.
I pressed myself against the wall and inched silently towards the first window. The stones were mossy and damp against my palms. I hesitated, then, holding my breath, slowly moved my head towards the glass. The chamber was in darkness. After some moments I discerned a bed and the dark outlines of bodies wreathed in blankets. Nothing stirred. At the foot of the bed was a cot, and I could see the yellow hair of Flora’s infant brother. My breath condensed on the glass. I took three sideward steps towards the second chamber. Abandoning all caution I stepped in front of the window. A candle was flickering and, in a heavy chair, swathed in blankets, sat not Flora, but an ancient woman, Lachlan Broad’s invalid mother who had not set foot outside the house for years. Her eyes were open and directed towards the casement, but she did not appear to register my presence. She seemed quite dead and the sight of her set my scalp tingling. To her right was a small bed, empty, and this I thought might be Flora’s. I watched the crone for a few moments, until I saw the faint rise and fall of her blankets. Then she blinked slowly, as if regaining her sight, and a bony finger emerged from beneath the covers and pointed towards me. Her lips moved soundlessly. I turned and bolted back up the hillside. Somewhere a dog set to barking and I imagined Lachlan Broad stirring from his sleep and blundering out of bed to investigate the disturbance. I threw myself into the damp grass behind a hummock of heather and lay there awhile, waiting for my breath to come back to me. No one stirred in the houses below and I returned home undetected. I spent what remained of the night lying awake on my bunk, thinking of Flora’s empty bed, and feeling quite pleased with the success of my enterprise.
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