“Ye’re frae the mountains . . . frae Glencoe—whaur, then?”
At the word she began to nod.
“Glencoe . . . ye’re a MacDonald, then.”
Another nod.
“Weel, I guess I canna hold it against ye, though I’m a Campbell myself. No MacDonald ever hurt a hair on my head. My name’s Brochan Cawdor. I wish I kenned yers. What du ye want that I call ye?”
Ginevra giggled.
“Why winna ye speak, lass? Canna ye speak?”
A response to that question even Ginevra did not know the answer to. Only another smile met the boy’s inquiry.
“Weel, then, I’ll jist call ye lassie MacDonald,” he said.
The laugh that met his ears this time was pure delight.
“What are ye doin’ so far frae home, lassie MacDonald?” Brochan asked.
Ginevra began a little dance, with a waving of her arms, ran a few yards over the heathery hillside, then returned. It was a much different series of motions than that with which she had saved the rabbit from becoming an ingredient in Brochan’s mother’s stew. The beating of her heart and the explosion of strange sensations erupting somewhere inside her at sight of this boy gave rise to a new desire to express herself. Never before in her life had she wanted to say something to another human being. She had never needed to. Now she gave vent to this new feeling the only way she knew how—with animated activity.
She returned and stood before him with an expression that could not have more clearly indicated that he ought to understand everything clearly now.
At last he smiled and gave a little laugh.
“Weel, ye’re a strange one, lassie,” he said. “But ye’ve a bonnie face an’ the bonniest eyes I ever set my sichts on. An’ ye got courage, whate’er ye lack in speech.”
Unconsciously he glanced up toward the sun. It was just disappearing over one of the high western peaks.
“But ’tis late,” he went on. “Ye’ve got t’ get home. I dinna ken whether ye’re lost or whether ye ken what ye’re aboot as well as any other. An’ since ye canna tell me, I’ll take ye hame mysel.’ Come.”
Ginevra obeyed. She followed as Brochan led down the slope in a northwesterly direction, happier than she had ever been in her life.
If Ginevra had known what it meant to be in love, she might have used such words to describe the state of her heart. But she was only fifteen, younger still in the ways of the world, and this handsome, wonderful, friendly boy but sixteen.
It was early to talk of love.
But she knew she had found a friend.
Seven
As the two young people grew, the bond established between them at their first meeting deepened and blossomed.
How they chanced to see each other so often when eleven miles separated the homes of their parents might seem improbable. But where hearts begin to draw close, meetings seem to occur of themselves.
Ginevra hardly slept following her reappearance in the glen after Brochan left her at the point where candles from the first cottages became visible. Not that night, nor the following, nor the night following that. Three days later she was wandering the same solitary moors and slopes and heaths in hopeful thought of catching a distant glimpse of the boy who already occupied her dreams. She did not see him for another week. But when the day finally came that each saw the other on a distant hill, both came running toward the little dell that lay between them. He was as delighted to see her as she was to see him.
“Lassie MacDonald!” he cried.
The mere sound of the name that no one called her but him, in the voice from his lovely lips, sent Ginevra into an ecstasy of dancing gyrations and hand-wavings and skipping about. When at last they again stood before each other, she could do nothing but beam.
“Come, lassie MacDonald,” said Brochan, “I’m trackin’ a deer—a big one by the looks o’ it. But I promise to shoot naethin’ while ye’re wi’ me. We’ll jist hae a wee look.”
He led the way up the rugged slope, amazed at the girl’s stamina and agility as they followed the trail of hoofprint, trampled brush, and musky droppings. She could fly up the rocky ground as quickly as he. Indeed it was she who felt the animal’s presence long before his eyes detected movement. As they approached, Ginevra made signals and signs with hands and eyes that Brochan was already beginning to grasp. She led the way, making him understand that the creature was near, motioning him into silence that matched her own.
Suddenly he gasped in disbelief. “’Tis the white stag!”
His bow fell to the ground as he gaped in wonder. All thought of attempting a shot immediately left his mind. He had known the tracks he was following had been made by a large animal. But never in his wildest dreams did he anticipate this. The great snow-white creature stood drinking at a small pond among the rocks, his expansive rack of antlers riding gracefully as his head bent to the water.
Brochan had heard from his childhood of the great white stag of the Highlands, as had all Highland youngsters. Until this moment, he had only half believed the tales.
The stag apprehended their presence, lifted his noble head, and turned to gaze at them with great, liquid brown eyes. It was an instant that would remain forever etched in both their memories. Only a second more did the magical moment last. Suddenly the stag sprang as if with winged feet over the pond and disappeared among the rocks.
Brochan and Ginevra stood in silence a moment longer, then continued on their way. The encounter left them strangely quiet and peaceful. Gradually Brochan resumed talking. Before long they were on the track of other, more ordinary game. As the afternoon passed, Brochan realized what an asset Ginevra would be to any huntsman. At the same time he knew that whenever they were together, he would not be able to kill so much as a mouse.
For the rest of the summer, as often as they chanced to meet, they hunted together for the sheer joy of tracking and watching and more deeply understanding the ways of the Highlands. With wonder Brochan learned to gaze upon the many wild birds and other creatures of the region with new eyes, not as prey, but as fellow inhabitants of a world that was wider and richer and more beautiful than he had previously known.
In Ginevra’s presence he learned to listen to the silence and to hear what the quiet had to teach him. The land and its many creatures became dearer to him because he learned to see all through Ginevra’s eyes.
Eight
Gradually the air turned, the wind rose, and with it came the smell of snow. Winter descended upon mountains, glens, and moors.
As hearty as was Ginevra MacIain’s frame and constitution, no one could now travel in a single day to those high regions where she and Brochan had tracked the stag and the boar and the fox and the elk and hope to return alive.
Ginevra’s mother noticed the change in her daughter. Some deeper knowing, some keener awareness of life had grown inside her—a yet deeper calm, a more distant expression in her visage, something new in her eyes. All winter the sense deepened that a transformation had come upon Ginevra. It was not until the following summer that the mother discovered its cause.
Late in the spring a lad appeared in Glencoe, a stranger none of the glen had laid eyes on before. None knew him to be a Campbell.
He came asking the whereabouts of a strange girl with wild red hair and a snow cave’s eyes of pale blue. A girl who never spoke a word.
It took not long for him to find the one he sought. All in Glencoe knew the lass of pale eyes, flaming hair, and silent tongue.
Immediately the wives began to talk and the children of Achtriachtan, the first village to hear his inquiries, scampered off down the river toward Carnoch with the tidings. Some of the younger children lagged behind and followed the stranger as he went, so that by the time he reached the village where the chief of Clan MacIain dwelt, a multitude of youngsters and barking dogs followed in his train as if he were the piper of Hamelin.
News of his coming had preceded him. From the raucous and varied reports of the children wh
o clamored to her mother’s door—that the stranger came from the east, that he was young and strong and handsome—Ginevra well knew who it must be. Ginevra’s mother sat rocking as she held her young son, looking at her daughter with question as to what could be the cause of the commotion.
Trembling, Ginevra went to the door and peeped out. In the distance a crowd approached along the village road. At its head strode the tall figure of one who was assuredly a boy no longer. Her heart began beating such that she thought it would explode within her breast.
Slowly she went to the door, opened it, and walked outside. She stood waiting in front of the cottage. He had filled her dreams all through the long winter months. But now she could hardly bring herself to look up. Her eyes sought the ground.
She heard the tumult approach. Gradually it quieted and grew still. Yet a moment more she waited.
“Lassie MacDonald,” said a wonderful, familiar voice. “Ye’ve aye grown into a bonnie maiden since I saw ye last.”
Slowly, bashfully, Ginevra lifted her head.
There he stood five feet away, even more magnificent than she had remembered him!
The eyes of the two Highland youths met. Slowly smiles spread over their faces. For a blissful eternal moment nothing else existed in the universe except that both knew they were still one, that they had been all along.
Ginevra’s eyes sparkled with light. There was no animated dance now, only a quiet, mysterious happy smile to hear his voice again.
“They tell me yer name’s Ginevra,” Brochan said.
She closed her eyes for sheer joy. As wonderful as the “lassie” had been, to hear her own name on Brochan’s lips was rapture indeed.
Both had changed. If Brochan was not much taller, his shoulders were broader and his chest thicker and his voice a note or two deeper. His cheeks were leaner, chin stronger and more angular. He was not yet quite a man. But his hazel eyes bore the dignity of a youth pointed in the right direction, who would be the best kind of man.
As for Ginevra, her body had become the body of a woman. Her face had thinned, her cheekbones grown more prominent, her lips more full, her contours more rounded. Nothing could be done to improve the eyes, the black lashes and brows setting off the pale blue orbs to perfection. Her beauty was indeed radiant, though it took one such as Brochan to see it. Had she not been considered an anomaly, she would have been sought after by every young man in the glen. As it was, none of them paid her the slightest heed, for her strangeness blinded them to the beauty in front of them.
At last, able to contain herself no longer, Ginevra broke into a happy, spontaneous dance of abandon. For a few seconds, her arms flew above her as head bobbed and hair tumbled about.
Brochan laughed with delight.
The spell was broken. Two dozen children and youngsters tore off through the village, each eager to be the first to spread the news of Ginevra’s caller from across the mountains.
Now Ginevra was truly in love. She knew it. And her mother knew it.
Nine
Whatever might have been the state of her mental faculties—on this question, notwithstanding the visits to Glencoe paid by Brochan Cawdor, the village remained greatly divided—Ginevra was utterly oblivious to the mounting political tensions between England and Scotland. Aware of them or not, however, the collision between the two nations would ultimately destroy the innocence of her silent childhood and youth, and the blissful years of her dawning young womanhood.
In the year 1685, King Charles II of England and Scotland was succeeded by his Catholic brother, James VII. The new king was unpopular throughout both England and Scotland—everywhere but in the Scottish Highlands, where the clan chieftains remained loyal to the ancient Stewart dynasty of the early Jameses and Mary Queen of Scots. James VII might be a Catholic, but he was a Stewart, and that fact was sufficient to resolve the issue in their minds. Highlanders would support him to the death.
The English government, however, adamant that no Catholic could be allowed as head of state, was determined to oust James from rule. So Parliament invited the king’s son-in-law, William of Orange, and James’ daughter Mary, over from Holland to assume the throne.
William was only too happy to oblige. What man of the times was likely to turn down a kingdom handed him on a silver platter? In November of 1688, therefore, he landed in England with his army, and James VII fled to France. William and Mary were crowned King William III and Queen Mary of England, Ireland, and Scotland.
These events took place in Ginevra’s seventeenth year, but she knew nothing of them. Her thoughts were filled with the Campbell lad who dreamed of marching with the earl’s men.
Most of southern Scotland supported William’s takeover, for the Protestant lowland clans felt little passion for the fading Stewart dynasty and had by then grown gradually comfortable with English rule. But many of the Highland clans obstinately viewed the Dutchman as a usurper to what rightfully should have been a Stewart throne. Eventually hostilities broke out between those who considered James their rightful king, known as Jacobites, and the regime of William and Mary.
In the summer of 1689, King William sent troops north to put down the Jacobite rebels. A force raised from among Highland clans met the government’s army at the gorge of Killiecrankie in central Scotland, fell upon it savagely, and nearly annihilated every one of the king’s soldiers. In this engagement, MacDonalds were represented more than any other clan, the Campbells the least, for Clan Campbell had little sympathy for the Jacobite cause.
Their victory only deepened the determination of the Jacobites to resist the new order. Fighting continued. King William determined to root out the rebellion against his throne . . . whatever measures must be taken. He would not let the Highlanders oppose him indefinitely.
Ten
Clan Donald, the largest of all Highland clans, stemmed from mixed Norse and Celtic origins. Its name derived from Donald (1207–1249), grandson of Somerled, the shadowy heroic warrior who had conquered much of western Scotland in the mid-1100s. The title “Lord of the Isles,” originally applied to Somerled and carried down through the years, reinforced the MacDonald view that the chiefs of Clan Donald, with all its multitude branches, were the undisputed lords of the Gaelic world.
The inhabitants of the little valley of Glencoe were the smallest branch on the tree of this great family. They called themselves Clan Iain, or Clan John, after their ancestor Iain Og nan Fraoch, Young John of the Heather. The land of the glen had been given to Young John as a gift early in the fourteenth century by his father, Angus Og of Islay, who had brought MacDonalds in large numbers to fight for the mighty Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn.
Following the burial of John of the Heather on the island of Iona in 1338, Clan Iain had been ruled by a succession of eight more Johns. Most of the inhabitants of Glencoe, therefore, considered themselves sons of John, or MacIains. The MacIains possessed an ancestry of which any Highlander might be proud, from the present chief Alasdair back twelve generations of MacIains to John of the Heather, to Angus Og and Angus Mor and Donald and Ranald and Somerled himself, yet further back to Colla the Prince and Conn, the High King of Ireland crowned on the Stone of Fail.
The MacDonalds, therefore, at least by their claim, possessed the largest, most royal, and most sacred genealogy in all the Highlands.3 And as could be said of most Highland clans, they felt they owed ultimate loyalty to none but their own chiefs. They especially resented the increasing southern attempts to subdue them and to compel their allegiance to a centralized form of national government. Theirs was a centuries-long tribal tradition in which nationhood meant nothing, clan everything.
Through the centuries, tension had increased between these two opposing ways of life—the old tribal tradition and the new, more centralized form of society developing in many parts of the world. For centuries, one English king after another had attempted to subdue the wild Scots of the mountainous north. Lowland Scotland, nearer the border, meanwhile had gradually all
owed itself to be assimilated into English culture and government.
As the eighteenth century approached, the Highland chiefs could see their ancient ways dying out. Some, such as the leaders of clan Campbell, at last gave in to the march of progress. Those who went along cooperatively with the new order were rewarded. Money, grants of land, and positions of power were extremely effective inducements to the laying down of clan traditions, along with the swords and rifles that accompanied them.
Others of this proud race, however—notably the MacDonalds—remained fiercely determined to keep hold of their independence, their individuality, and the legacy of their Celtic past. They would bow the knee to no man but the chief of their clan . . . and the rightful king of their land.
No one man more implacably represented this determination than Ginevra’s great uncle, chief Alasdair MacIain of Glencoe.
Neighboring the Glencoe MacIains, both to the south in Argyll and eastward on Rannoch Moor, lived large numbers of Campbells who were loyal to the new king and disdainful of the Jacobite cause. For a hundred years Clan Campbell had profited from alliances with London and Edinburgh. As a result, it had grown and increased its holdings, while Clan Donald had its lands taken away for opposing the crown.
By the final decades of the sixteenth century, King William III and his advisors had come to view the Campbells as the most reasonable of Scotland’s clans, and the earl of Argyll as one of the king’s most trusted supporters in the Highlands. In MacDonald eyes, therefore, their neighbors to the south and east were the worst kind of national traitors.
But the rivalry between the two clans had local roots as well. As joint occupants of the western lands, they had thieved and raided one another’s herds for centuries. It was in this spirit that Alasdair “the Red” MacIain, giant chief of the Glencoe MacDonalds, carried out one of his most successful plunders in 1689. Returning from the victory at Killiecrankie with his men, still resentful that no Campbells had joined them in battle, he marched through the Campbell stronghold of Glen Lyon west of Aberfeldy, across the Black Mount, and north across Rannoch Moor, thence descending down into their native glen along the banks of the Coe. On their way they made off with thirteen hundred Campbell horses, cattle, sheep, and goats, as well as many household goods.
Legend of the Celtic Stone Page 8