Corrag

by Susan Fletcher

  And him…

  I knelt in the snow and looked at her. I looked at her eyes, and saw my eyes. And I thought him—Alasdair.

  Of all the things my heart has known, it has known him most of all.

  Never love a person. And I had nodded at Cora as she’d said this. I’d whispered I won’t. But even then—even then! As a child!—I had heard my heart shaking against its ribs, shouting you will love! You will! You will! And many years later, in a room of beeswax candles with the rain outside, I saw his face, and knew.

  Gormshuil said, you want the second sight? To be taught it? Half-mad thing…You have always had it.

  And she was right. I had. I knew it, as I knelt there. I had always had it, for we all do—all people born with a heart have it, for it is the heart’s voice. It is the soul’s song. I have had it with every starry sky, with each bee that knocked against me as it rose up from a bloom. I’ve had it with kindness—mine, and others’. I’ve had it with the hairs on my arms standing up, at the sound of a clan singing a fireside song, or with my eyes filling with tears at a simple, lovely sight. For it is in these moments that the heart speaks up. It says yes! Or him! Or left or right. Or run.

  We all have it. But I think it is people like us—lonesome, in love with the blustery world—who hear the heart most clearly. We hear its breath, feel its turns. We see what it half-sees.

  We sat for a moment like that. My hand in her hand. The snow coming down.

  Then she leant forward. She put her mouth by my ear so that I could smell her breath, and feel her damp hair against my cheek, and she said the word I’ve said to myself, all my life—a word which a witch’s heart sings over and over, night after night. A second-sight word.

  Corrag?

  Yes?

  You must run.

  I did. I ran. I left her sitting in the snow and ran down the mountain, sliding on the ice, knocking my bones on the rocks. I ran along the glen floor thinking faster! Faster. For I knew. I did.

  It is not what the eyes see—no. I thought it was! I had thought the second sight was a dream, or a vision, a sudden rush of breath. I had thought that the truth might step into my hut, like a ghost, and says its name—that I might find it, if I sought it. But Mr Leslie, I was wrong.

  You will know it, in time…

  I knew it, now. And I knew it was a feeling—deep, in the chest, or in more than the chest. It was a feeling in the bones, in the womb, in the soul. It was the animal that hides in us shaking its coat, pricking its ears, and telling us run! Or fight! Or love! Or hide!

  And I thought go go go.

  I PASSED the Three Sisters. I passed beneath the Ridge Like a Church. I hauled myself through the snowdrifts, and brushed under trees, and ran.

  It was dark when I came to Alasdair’s home. The sky was gone—there was only snow falling down now, and the dark. There was no wind in the glen, and before I knocked on his door I paused, and breathed. I heard the hush. All about me, there was quietness. The smoke rose tall and untroubled. The house was asleep.

  But he opened the door like he’d not been sleeping. What is it?

  We took ourselves to a darker place, by a tree. I could not talk for being breathless, and I leant forward, breathed hard. He put his hand on my back and crouched down beside me, and said, what?

  The red men, I said.

  The soldiers?

  Yes.

  What of them? Corrag?

  They will try to kill you. Tonight. All of you. I looked in his eyes—his huge, blue eyes which were shining, so that I saw my own eyes in his eyes, and he did not say no… Or you are mistaken.

  He said, how do you know? Who has told you?

  I took his arm. No one has told me. But I know—I know! I beat my chest with my fist. I know…

  Corrag, he said, shaking his head, why would they harm us? We are their hosts—their hosts! We have fed them, warmed them. My father is playing cards with Glenlyon at this moment… He shook his head more slowly, and then stopped. What reason would they have?

  But I stamped my foot. I took his other arm so that I was before him, looking up. I know. I know what your head is saying—I know. But trust me? Please? Trust what I am saying, even if it seems strange? Did I not help your wife? Bring out your son? Didn’t I mend your father when I barely knew him and was so desperately afraid—but I still mended him? I don’t know why they will hurt you, but they will, Alasdair. Tonight, they will. I am more certain of this than I have been certain of all other things, in all my whole life. My heart knows it—here.

  He stared.

  I know what second sight is, now. I have it, I said. We all have it. We are born with it, as all creatures are… I calmed myself. Please—listen to me.

  The snow came down. The snow was on his hair, and his plaid. He said, what do we do? We have no arms—or not as they have. And now it snows…

  Go. Flee.

  Flee? In this weather? It will kill folk. Perhaps just the men will flee. The women can stay for they surely won’t be hurt…

  No—all of them. Take all of them.

  Women? And bairns?

  Yes. Go. Make for Appin. I don’t think a single living soul is safe, tonight.

  He stepped back. He looked at the ground and made a sound like he was tired of this, of me—like he did not trust me at all, after all. He turned his back. He put his hand in his hair, and I thought please listen…

  There was a moment which was my breath, and no other sound.

  Yes, he said. Yes. You talk of what the heart knows? I’ve felt this trouble in me since they came—here, and he felt his chest. They have smiled, and sang, and we’ve fed them, and yet…I’ll find my brother. I’ll tell him, and I’ll go to Inverrigan and listen at the door.

  Waste no time. Get as many out as you can.

  Yes. He stared at me like I was new, like we had never met before. He was all eyes.

  I must go.

  He stepped forwards. What? Where to?

  To Inverlochy, I told him. I’ll run there. You say the Colonel Hill is kindly, and a friend of the clans, so I will tell him. I will tell him they are killing the people of Glencoe, and he will come back with me with horses, and men, and save us. I must go.

  I wanted to say be safe to him. Do not die. I wanted to speak of how I felt, which was huge, and beyond all words. But I said nothing.

  He spoke instead. He called to me, as I set off to the north. He said, I will see you again, Corrag. And like he had had faith in my words, and my truth, or like he also had the second sight in him, I believed his.

  I smiled, briefly.

  Then I ran.

  I ran. I ran.

  Take my hand? I am running. I am sitting in a cell, in chains, but I run. I run north to Inverlochy. I run to save their lives.

  TOMORROW I will tell you of the Glencoe massacre. The dead, and the living. Him. Me.

  HOLD my hand? I am running. All my life, I have run.

  Jane, my love

  Forgive my last letter. Whisky was in it, as it was in my blood. There is none in me, now.

  It is beyond midnight. In the dark, amongst the dripping and the other water-sounds, I stood and looked upon the place where she will die. I saw its stake, and the many ropes. They have more ropes than they will need, for she is so small.

  She speaks of second sight. With her dove-grey eyes and girlish voice, she speaks of what she knows in her body—her stomach, her bones. I listened. Once I would have backed away, hissed, prayed. But tonight, I listened to what she knows, and loves, and believes.

  What do I believe? In God. In His goodness. I believe that by knowing Him, a person’s life is richer, and brighter, and is spent with better purpose. I have always believed in that. But I also believe, now, in the recognition that others might also think that—of their own gods, their own religions. She dreams, perhaps, of a day when all folk know the skill of herbs. Or (more likely) she believes very firmly that there is more light than dark in the world, more kindness than woe, more bea
uty than any violence can destroy, and maybe she longs for others to also see this—to not seek to change what is. I will confess she has shown me beauty. I only ever saw it in piety, and you. But a mountain has beauty. A loch does, at night.

  We do. We have it in us. That is her speaking, Jane, but also—it is me.

  I went to the forge. I sat in its warmth, watching him at work. I looked at his tools, hanging in their proper place, and I wonder if he believes in the heart’s voice, and the soul’s heart—for he did not ask a thing of me. He did not ask me to leave, or why I was there. Perhaps he knew, or did not care to know.

  I read and read. “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love” (1 John 4:8).

  I love you, Jane. Whatever happens, now, know that I love you—that of all my life’s blessings, you are the greatest.

  Charles.

  Four

  I

  “Venus owns this herb, and saith, That the leaves eaten by man and wife together, cause love between them.”

  of Periwinkle

  Sir. Mr Leslie. Who she saw, coming.

  Do not sit on the stool? Crouch with me. Crouch on the floor, and wrap my hands and my chains in your hands. This is a fearful telling. What I will speak of is such wickedness that I am afraid of speaking it. I’ve not breathed a word, till now. I’ve kept it inside.

  You’re so warm. See?

  Once, once, you were so offended by my dirt and my eyes that you did not sit. You eyed that stool like it was a trick. Remember? And now you settle on straw, by my bars.

  We all change, I told Alasdair—but not our hearts.

  Not them.

  I HAVE never run faster than I did, that night. Even in snow, with drifts that were shoulder-high to me, I had never run faster in all my life. I was all legs and arms, like a spider. I was wings, like a bird, and when I startled a hind that was crouching by rocks she ran alongside me, until she grew tired. I ran faster than her, in the falling snow.

  There was no wind, at first. When I came to the ferryboat at Ballachulish, and the man rowed me across, the snow came down thickly, and straight. It came onto my hair and nose and hands, and the loch itself was dark, metal-coloured. I said to him go, now. When you have dropped me on the other side you must flee. Do you hear me? He stared. He had a kind face.

  I fled. I climbed ashore, and ran north, and I ran so fast that the air I breathed had snow on it, in it, and so I had snow in my mouth and lungs. I thought of my mare. How fast she would have carried me. How white she would have been in the falling white.

  So I ran. I ran from the water and I ran through the hills. I ran through fields and over ice, and I ran, and ran, and I did not know the way to Inverlochy—or my head did not—but my heart knew, my second sight said north, and this way, and turn left at this drifting. And so after some long, long, white hours of running, I came down through snowy trees to see the fort before me. It was such a good sight. It was the best sight, and it made me hopeful, and I slowed. I thought, I am here, I have made it. All will be well from this moment on. The fort was very black. It had torches staked by its gates, and lights in its thin, slit windows that warmed me just by seeing them. As I came to its gates I thought I could hear the wood hiss as it burned, that I could smell meat cooking, and I thought for a little time be calm, now—be happy as I was here now, at Inverlochy, whose governor had promised to protect the Glencoe men. You have done well, Corrag and in the yard of the garrison I saw many soldiers gathering with pikes and muskets, and I held on to the bars of the gate, pressed my forehead against it.

  I called out.

  The guardsman approached me very briskly. He said what’s your business? He held a torch up in the snow to see me better and walked forwards, all muffled up and heavy from his damp coat.

  Please. I am here to see Colonel John Hill very urgently. It is of grave importance. People are in danger and I am here seeking his help.

  I breathed very hard through the bars. He looked on me like I was talking in a whole new tongue, like I made no sense, and I thought hag was in him, that he might say hag or witch. I would not have him say it—not when I needed Colonel Hill, as I did—so I asked again. Colonel Hill? Very quickly?

  The Colonel sees no-one tonight.

  I flinched. No-one? Why not? He will hear me, sir. Go to him and tell him I have a message from Glencoe and he must hear it at once. It’s a very dire matter and he must see me, he has to—I’ve run from there tonight in this weather. I looked sadly at him. Please?

  His look was different now. It altered as I talked—from one of contempt for me, this bunch of rags at the gate, to a look of proper worry and discomfort so that he looked very quickly into the shadows either side of me and then glanced back at the soldiers who were blowing on their hands.

  He said, Glencoe?

  All of Scotland knew its name. I wondered if he thought I might rob him of his purse or pull a musket on him. But I was very small and my hands were holding the bars of the gate very firmly, and I was no threat that I could see.

  I said, Yes. Please tell him.

  He was gone, then. I saw his great coat grow lost in the snow as he passed the soldiers with their arms, and in his absence all I could do was stamp my feet and practice in my head what best to speak to Colonel Hill, so I tried the words to myself and shook my hands to warm them, and I saw from the yard a man with a fine overcoat buttoned to the neck was eyes on me, very warily. I eyed him back. His staring was no matter to me now, for I was very certain of Colonel Hill receiving me—a young woman on her own in snow on a night of such foul weather. Colonel Hill was good—the clan said so. They said he understood them, kept his word.

  I was calm. But when the torch and frown of the guardsman came back through the white to me he was gruff, strong-worded, and said Be gone. Like I said, the Colonel is seeing no-one tonight.

  None? This was dreadful. I was open-mouthed, very afraid, and I grasped the bars harder and said but he must! A terrible thing is going to happen! And is he not a friend of the clans? But the guardsman spat into the snow, and scowled, and I heard some foul words come from him before he turned and was lost in the snow again. I did not rest, or go. I shook the gates, called Come back! He must see me! And when I saw the scowling man would not return for all my hollering and pleading I decided to shout so loudly the Colonel himself somewhere would hear me. Inverlochy was a mighty garrison, I saw that—very big, but not built so soundly that it might keep all noises out. On such a night also when the streets were muffled with the snow and the only men abroad were soldiers who gathered very quietly so I only heard the clink of their pikes on the frozen ground, and their boots also, he would surely hear me by his fire with his supper at his side. So I shouted out his name. I said, Colonel John Hill! Colonel Hill of Inverlochy! I have come for your assistance! Will you hear me? Through the snow I shouted. I have come from Glencoe!

  I shouted very much. I screamed Colonel Hill! Colonel Hill!

  Did he hear? I think he did. I think he heard me crying out—that maybe he thought, is that the wind? Or a ghost? For he came to the window to see. As I shook the bars, I looked up to a thin, high window in the west tower, which flickered and glowed with a fire’s light. And as I cried out Colonel Hill I saw a darkness move across the glow—a man-shaped darkness, and it stood there in the window so that I saw his wig’s silhouette, the shape of his nose. He looked down into the courtyard. He looked at the girl who waited at the gates, calling his name, and I let go of the bars. I stepped back. I felt rushed with fear, for I knew he would not let me in.

  He knows, is what I thought. He knows what lies ahead.

  Which he did. He must have done. For the King’s orders always pass from hand to hand. There are parchments signed, and passed on, and signed, and passed on, and I reckon Colonel Hill found this order on his bureau which said maul and cut off the branch of Glencoe, and what could he do? What choice did he have? But sign it? What choice?

  I do not blame him. I blame him no more than I bl
ame the hangman who put the rope about Cora, breathed sorry to her. I blame him no more than I do the rain, on rainy days, which drowns fledglings in their nests—for it is the clouds that make the rain. It’s not the raindrops’ fault.

  So Colonel Hill looked down. He saw me in my rags. He saw the snow thickening, and perhaps he thought, it is too late. Or may God save their souls. Or may God save mine—for they say he was a man of faith, with a good heart, and there was a manner to his silhouette which was sad-looking, and old.

  I nodded.

  Then I thought run—and I turned and ran, back through the snow.

  ON AND on. I ran back past trees and rocks which had seen me before, and I saw my old footprints in the snow which made sorry—for what good had it served, in coming north? I saw them and said to the ghost of me turn around turn around. Don’t waste time.

  It was the worst of all weather, and the worst of all feelings—to long for a place, to be dreadfully afraid and to want to get home yet for each leg to sink deep into drifts of snow, and the heart panics at such sinking but panic makes it worse by far. I fell fully down. My skirts and cloak were drenched from the snow and stuck to my skin, and I couldn’t see for the blizzarding—I could not hear at all for the wind howling round. I thought of Alasdair. I thought of how he said what harm could they do us? They are our guests—and those seemed very gentle words, and wise words, but I’d not believed in them. Even though he’d said them—him, with his freckled hands, his eyes. I loved how he said my name and how he’d held back branches for me as we’d walked, and as I ran through the snow I said over and over let all be well, let all be well… I tripped, I cracked ice and fell into pools. I fell against a rock, and struck my jaw, and I tore my skin on thorns so that I bled and left red on the ground. But when we want we find a way, we do, and I said to myself up! Get up!—for all I wanted was to be back in Glencoe. I knew trouble was coming. I knew what lay ahead.