Interloper at Glencoe

by Julianne Lee

  As supper ended and Beth gathered the plates for scraping into the slop bucket, she said to her father, “There’s to be céilidh tonight. The MacIain is in Inverrigan.”

  Father cursed, then said in Gaelic, “We cannae go.”

  “In English, Father.”

  But he continued in Gaelic, “Do ye want the stranger to ken all our business?”

  Now Beth also spoke in Gaelic. “Do you imagine he’s a spy sent to listen at your door?”

  Father’s eyes dulled at the jibe. “As if there were anything known in the glen he couldnae learn here. And you should have more respect for your elders, girl.”

  Beth pressed her lips together and declined to feel guilty. As the only woman in the household, she understood it her duty to keep the men from too much false pride, to which they were all terribly prone. God knew what mischief they might be up to if there were no women about, to keep them from wandering into the weeds at every turn. “And should we cut ourselves off from our kin entirely for the duration of his stay?” She took her woolen cloak from the peg by the door and threw it around her shoulders.

  Without further comment, Father inserted the lit candle from the table into their small lantern, then led the family—plus Mr. Mouliné—out to the path leading to one of the few stone houses in the glen. The house of the MacIain’s Inverrigan tacksman was just beyond the trees downriver, in the direction of Carnoch. Others were also on their way, walking along the path in blustery darkness, carrying lanterns or candles shielded by hands. Most of them chatted amongst themselves, but not as many greeted Beth as should have. As she admitted it to herself her ears warmed, and she cursed Gòrdan under her breath once again.

  “What’s going on?” asked Mr. Mouliné. He huddled inside his plaid, still limping and hopping over rocks and sticks in his newly bare feet, and Beth wished there had been a coat and brogues for him.

  “Céilidh. We’re to gather in the white house, where MacDonald of Inverrigan lives.”

  “And he would be...?”

  “The tacksman. The leader of our village.” Most people would have known that. This fellow seemed singularly stupid, even for an outsider.

  He chuckled. “Your leader lives in the White House?”

  She glanced at him, curious to know what so amused him, and replied, “Aye. That there.” She nodded toward a house with torches alight along the path to it, up ahead in the midst of a harvested and grazed field, away from the river. It was the thatched stone farmhouse belonging to the tacksman, similar to the one the MacIain kept in Carnoch except for the lack of glazed windows. Carnoch was the only building in the glen able to boast the costly glass.

  Mr. Mouliné gazed at it for a moment, then remarked, “Not very white, is it?”

  “More light in color than a black house that has no mortar on the stones.”

  He nodded. “Good point.”

  People filed through the low door of Inverrigan’s house, and the four of Seòras MacDonald’s household followed. Inside there was little light, but the room was already close and extremely warm, with a cluster of men around the fire. Small children filled the high bunks of beds in the corner, quiet and listening to the intense voices of their elders. Folks sat on benches, stools and wooden chairs, and a row of young men sat atop the wooden table behind them. Beth left Mr. Mouliné to the men, and went to sit with the women. Some chatting amongst that group fell silent as she approached, but she ignored it. Eòsaph’s wife Anna, a MacLeod recently married into the glen, moved over on her bench to give Beth a seat. The other women now spoke to her, pretending there had been no silence, but Beth’s chest tightened nevertheless.

  Calum and his two teenage sons entered the house, and made their way to a far corner away from the fire, a spot befitting their standing in the clan. Calum’s wife and small daughter weren’t with them, which surely surprised nobody. The wife was a shrew and had few friends, and the daughter was very small. Calum leaned against the peat wall with his arms crossed over his chest, and the two lads looked around with eyes that said they wished there were places to sit other than the floor. They ended up cross-legged in the dirt scattered with bracken.

  Beth caught Dùghall’s eye and nodded toward Calum. Her brother glanced in that direction, then elbowed Mr. Mouliné to point out the new arrivals. Their visitor looked, but shook his head. They were not the robbers.

  Anna leaned close to Beth and murmured, “Who is the stranger?”

  The knot in Beth’s gut loosened and she smiled. “A Frenchman from the colonies. He’s been robbed, and has no means to make his way home.”

  Anna gazed across the room, where Mr. Mouliné sat quietly. “Poor fellow. Calum’s lads, then?”

  Beth shook her head. “He says no. Foreigners did the deed.”

  “A bonnie man, that one, I can see from here. You’re taking good care of him, I expect?”

  Beth nodded, and ignored the implication of dishonorable intentions toward the stranger. She said nothing further, not caring to elaborate on the circumstances or condition in which she’d found Mr. Mouliné. She hoped nobody would recognize the clothing he wore.

  The talk was all in Gaelic, so their visitor surely wasn’t understanding much. Beth gestured to her brother to translate for him, but Dùghall’s eyes narrowed at her and she doubted much would be said to Mr. Mouliné tonight.

  Anna said, “He doesnae seem all that French.”

  “No, there’s truth in that. He doesn’t seem so.” And that was all Beth would say. She gazed at him also, and as she watched him she suddenly wished she’d listened to her father and not insisted they come tonight. It might have been nice to spend the evening visiting with Mr. Mouliné, rather than to merely look at him from across the room. His shoulders filled Father’s sark and held up Dùghall’s spare plaid as well as any Scot she’d known or heard tell of. There might be interesting things to learn of the mind in the head upon those shoulders and behind those eyes.

  By this time the talk was well begun. The white-haired Alasdair MacDonald, laird of the glen, sat near the fire in a chair sturdy enough for his tall, solid frame, in heated debate with several of the clansmen. His two sons stood to the rear, less vocal but contributing on occasion. Alasdair Og, the younger son of the laird, leaned against the wattling of the byre wall, his arms crossed over his chest.

  “I willnae,” the laird was saying when Beth turned her attention away from Mr. Mouliné and toward the talk around the fire. “I cannae, and hold my honor.”

  “And if they hang you?”

  “First they will have to take me, and I willnae make that so easy for them. But I will not take an oath of allegiance to William until I’m released from my obligation to James. No man can serve two masters.” He sat back in his chair which creaked under him, and crossed his arms over his broad chest.

  Beth glanced over at their guest, and was pleased to note Dùghall murmuring to Mr. Mouliné, his eyes on the laird as he translated.

  Alasdair Og said, “James cannot be acting in the best interest of his people by leaving us to the mercy of William’s soldiers.”

  “He isnae.”

  “Where is he, then? What is he doing to assure us?”

  Another clansman said, “Perhaps he wishes us to rise on our own?”

  Alasdair Og said with an edge to his voice, “I expect he would like that. To return to us after the fighting is accomplished, at no expense to himself.”

  MacIain said, “We’ve agreed not to do so.”

  “Unless it simply happens, or unless William withdraws his forces first.”

  There was scattered talk about the room regarding the unlikelihood of such a thing. William had little reason anymore to withdraw, as beaten as the Jacobites had become in every effort since their single victory at Killiecrankie two years before.

  “So, you see, he’s doing naught but standing back and wishing for us to rise on our own and save him the trouble of support.”

  Someone in the back near the door suggested th
at might be an excellent idea.

  Alasdair Og cried, “’Twould be suicide!”

  The voice from the back replied, “I was at Killiecrankie, and I say we can beat the Sasunnach soldiers exactly that way again!”

  “Not without Dundee, we cannae! He’s dead, and so will we be should we press the issue!”

  “Aw, take yer Campbell wife and—”

  “Quiet!” MacIain held up his palms. “There will be no rising. Other lairds have spoken of taking the oath once we’re released from our pledges. We’ve until the new year to hear from James, and I’m content to wait. We’ll not be bothered by the English king until then.”

  “You ken he hates us as if he were a Campbell, and will be highly pleased to hang you.” There was a catch in Alasdair Og’s voice, to speak of his father’s death. A tightness grew in Beth’s own throat at the memory of other hangings of MacIains. The clan had many enemies, and there always seemed someone out to kill their men.

  Nevertheless, MacIain laughed and turned to eye his son. “Then he’s in dead common company and will await his turn after Breadalbane, Argyll, and all the other belly-crawling Campbells, won’t he?”

  Laughter burbled across the room, and the tension broke. Conversation turned to Iain Glas Campbell of Breadalbane, and voices became boastful as well as loud. There would be a creach before long, Beth was certain. The wealthy Campbells, who had entirely too many cattle, could afford to lose a few to their poorer neighbors and would do so soon.

  Beth looked over again at Mr. Mouliné, and found him deep in conversation with her father. A crease of concern had come to his brow, and it struck her heart that he would be so involved in the problems of the MacIain Dhomhnallach. He was asking questions, glancing from Father to the MacIain and back, and the look in his eye was the light of caring. Hardly the studied neutral demeanor of a spy. So strange for an outsider to interest himself in what might happen to their tiny clan. It made her even more curious about him.

  o0o

  Near as Nick could tell about this discussion, the guy with the white hair—who appeared to be the laird of the glen—had been given an ultimatum. If he didn’t take some sort of oath of allegiance to King William by January 1, something terrible would happen to the people living in this valley. And he figured he knew better than anyone here what that terrible thing would be.

  Sitting, listening to Dùghall translate the talk, he thought back to his grammar school days when he was required to place his hand on his chest and pledge allegiance to the American flag. He’d always done it without much thought, and therefore without much feeling. The thing hanging from the pole in the schoolroom corner was only a piece of cloth, after all. As for the country itself, he could never have imagined what other country might have claimed his loyalty. The system had been in place for so long, and was such a given in his mind, that reciting the words had been nothing more than a silly ritual of no more significance than singing “Happy Birthday.”

  But these men seemed dead serious about the pros and cons of oath-taking. The king of England was serious about killing people who didn’t pledge. This MacIain guy was serious about putting his life on the line—and the lives of his clan—for the sake of his personal honor regarding his previous commitment. It boggled Nick that this man wasn’t already on his way to the office of whatever official he needed to sign papers for.

  And now the men were talking about stealing cattle. At least, that’s what the brother was telling him they were saying. Nick wasn’t too sure the guy wasn’t having him on. Apparently some MacIain cattle had been stolen earlier in the year, and though nobody knew for sure who’d done it they all assumed it had been Campbells. Dùghall said they’d tried to track the “kine,” but had been unable to determine where the animals had been taken. So it was assumed they were on Campbell land, and Dùghall insisted it was a safe assumption. The Campbells had long been at odds with the MacIains, who were a sept of the MacDonald clan—“Dhomhnallach,” they called themselves—and therefore bitter rivals to some guy named Breadalbane. Who was a Campbell of some sort. One of the lairds, and an Earl to boot. Maybe. Nick wasn’t too sure he was getting any of this straight.

  But he understood the Campbell/MacDonald thing. Though part of his mind insisted on picturing soup cans and hamburgers, another part was occupied with American hillbillies named Hatfield and McCoy. He knew this valley was going to get hammered bad by Campbell Redcoats in about three months because of a long-standing and bloody feud. He wanted to shout to the white-haired old man to sign the damned oath and stop messing around. He wanted to leap to his feet and make an impassioned plea to put a stop to this madness and save the lives of the thirty-nine who would die in February. But another thing he understood was that these people would never listen to an outsider. There was no hope of being taken seriously. So he sat and listened, and fought the rising terror.

  Chapter 3

  Beth rose from sleep well before dawn the next morning. The approaching winter solstice made the days short enough that by sunrise the day would be nearly half over, so most waking hours were spent in darkness. Every year it was well before the days would begin to lengthen that she longed for the bright summer mornings to greet her. Today she could smell the snow on the air, and hoped it hadn’t begun falling yet. The darkness was still deep when she left her bed, lifted her nightgown to use the chamber pot on the floor while Father and Dùghall snored away in the other bunks, then made her way to the other room to revive the fire.

  Careful to avoid stepping on the shadow on the floor by the fire, which was Mr. Mouliné where he lay, she knelt by the hearth and began arranging kindling over the embers. Then over that she laid two dried peats so they would catch when the kindling lit. With a rush light soaked in pitch, she poked the glowing red embers of the fire she’d banked the night before. It lit with a bright flare smelling sharply of pine, and she left it there to catch the kindling. She waited while the fire grew, to be certain the peats caught properly and smoldered hot.

  Light rose from the wood, orange and warm, flickering and struggling against the dark, and fell on the pallet near the hearth. Beth took this moment to examine their guest freely, with nobody watching her, not even himself. Asleep, he appeared terribly young. Barely out of his teens he seemed, though he claimed to be in his thirties. At rest there were no lines in his face. No scars. All his teeth were present, she could tell by the even planes of his cheeks, and he had a look of innocence that was more than merely a bonnie face. Though he surely had that as well. Thick eyelashes lay against his smooth skin. His jaw, now colored with dark beard stubble, was strong and square, his mouth wide, and his nose long and straight.

  He stirred, and Beth stood in a hurry to begin breakfast preparation. She snatched the water bucket from beneath the table, and took it to the door, where she donned her cloak for the walk to the burn that ran to the river. But before leaving, she paused to watch Mr. Mouliné from the safety of shadow.

  Momentarily his eyes opened, and he groaned and looked around as if he were struggling awake after a heavy drunk the night before. But he hadn’t been drinking at all, not even ale, for there had been only water to give him last night. His gaze settled on the ceiling, then on the fire in the hearth, and he groaned long again. It was a desolate sound. Her heart clenched for him, for the poor man was far from home and more than likely wished he were not here. “Oh, God,” he prayed, but said nothing further and only ran his hand over his face. Then he sat up and looked around, and found her standing by the door.

  “Who’s there?”

  “’Tis myself only.”

  He grunted and nodded. “You always get up this early?” He blinked to focus on her in the shadows.

  “’Tis not so early at all. In summer the sun would have been well up by now. I’m off to fetch water for the meal.”

  “Can I help?”

  She shook her head. “If I thought you wouldnae wander off, lost, between here and the burn I’d send you with the bucket. But ’
tis dark yet, and the track through the woods has many branches and turns. I’ll return soon.”

  Mr. Mouliné nodded. Then she added, “As you’ve lost your dirk, you may use my smaller knife for shaving. It won’t be so sharp as a sgian dubh, but the whetting stone can be found in that box on the second shelf and you may have at it.”

  “Knife...” Mr. Mouliné rubbed his chin and appeared less than eager to shave himself with her work knife.

  “Aye, but it’s what I can offer. The ewer you’ll find on the table near the beds.” She nodded toward the alcove. “The chamber pot is beneath my bunk, and if ye fill it the manure pile for emptying it is around back of the house.”

  “I see.” He didn’t much sound as if he saw at all, but Beth was at a loss for a more clear explanation. She nodded, pulled her cloak around her, and stepped out into the winter morning.

  It was unsettling to realize her heart was skipping along a bit too quickly for comfort. Mr. Mouliné was a braw man, after all, and she would have to be dead to not notice it. It crossed her mind to wonder why God had brought him to her village, and though she couldn’t fathom her luck she thanked the Lord in any case.

  Later that day, she paused in her work to watch their visitor chop wood in the dooryard. It might have been an amusing sight, had she not been so fearful of him hurting himself. He brought to mind a boy just learning, poor of aim with the ax though he had a good, strong swing. His errors caused him to shred his way through the wood rather than cut a swath like a proper woodsman. The ax was mauling it, and he made no progress at all.

  She considered who this fellow might be. Soft hands and lack of work skill suggested a dissolute layabout for a certainty, for his manners were not of a gentleman and he hadn’t the wrinkle-nosed look of the rich. Unless moneyed folks in the colonies had quite given up the attitudes so dear to the upper classes, he could not be one of them. More than likely he was a thief, or perhaps a religious man.