She unwrapped the soft leather cover. “Now this is beautiful and there’s an inscription from Captain Otter himself. How kind of him.”
“A spyglass!”
Tom started at the sudden voice. He turned round to see an upturned face with large, glowing eyes and a pelt of black hair. More like a panther cub than a small boy.
Janet smiled fondly at the child. “First you must greet these gentlemen, Lieutenant Masters and Mr. Williams. This is Louis, the son of Mr. Stevenson. He’s staying with us while his father is away building lighthouses.”
“I’ve been watching your ship getting bigger as it came closer.” Janet gave him the telescope and he pushed it against his eye. “Oh, it’s made the ship smaller.”
“Turn it the other way around,” Tom bent down so that he was level with the child. “Now you can see the men on board clearly.”
“I can!” Louis squealed, hopping from foot to foot.
His excitement made them all grin.
“Captain Otter is very generous. If I write him a letter, would you give it to him for me? Louis, go and ask Effie to bring us some tea.”
Louis skipped off to do her bidding. “He’s been ill, poor soul, but he’s much recovered now. I fear he’s weary of having only female company.”
“Would he like to come aboard?” Tom asked.
“We’ll have to make sure that he’s well wrapped up.”
“Can I go on the ship?” Louis erupted into the room again.
They walked across the rocky beach to the rowing boat, Louis darting between the strolling men. Richard rowed while Tom listened to Louis’s chatter. He recounted the stories Janet had told him, spoke about his collection of different-colored stones and shells and told how Hamish had taken him to fish for mackerel from the rocks. Then he stared at Tom. “Did your Papa want you to join the Navy?”
“No. He was angry with me.”
“You don’t have to follow in your Papa’s footsteps if you don’t want to?”
“That’s true. Don’t you want to build lighthouses?”
“I want to write stories, sea adventures.”
“Well I’m sure Captain Otter can tell you some tales. He’s famous for them.” Tom winked at Richard who grinned. “Now we’re at the ship. Can you climb up the rope ladder?”
“Of course.” But Louis gnawed his lip as he watched the ladder swinging against the hull. Tom clambered onto it first while Richard stood behind Louis, guiding his hands onto the rungs.
“A new midshipman, I see,” Captain Otter boomed when they found him bent over his charts. “Your visit was successful?” he asked Tom.
“Yes sir, but the telescope was a greater success than the lamp. Mrs. MacKenzie asked me to give you this letter.”
“Good. Well young man, would you like to inspect my ship?”
Louis explored everything. He felt the shuddering engines under his feet, climbed into a hammock to let the waves rock him and marked in some figures on the captain’s chart, his tongue sticking out as he concentrated. After a piece of fish and some hard tack from the galley it was time to slither down the rope ladder and row back to the island. Before they beached the boat he had fallen asleep, his face nuzzled against Richard’s arm.
Chapter 6
Island of Rona, Summer 1857
Kenneth loped over the bog cotton and springy clumps of heather. He slowed his pace as he saw a platform of rock ahead. A stocky man stood looking out to sea, his chin tilted upward. He gave no sign that he had noticed Kenneth until he was upon him, “What do you want?” he grunted.
“I was after looking for work.”
“And why should I take you on?”
He felt his anger flare but doused it at once. “Because I work hard and I know about using stone.”
The older man raised a questioning eyebrow.
“I’ve been doing building work for Mr. Rainey on Raasay.”
“Well, I’ve my own men for the skilled jobs.”
Kenneth waited, calloused hands gripping his cap in front of him.
John Menzies let out his breath in a hiss, “Well we could do with another laborer to fetch and carry, I suppose. At least you can speak the Queen’s English. I’ll give you a trial for a week and if you’re any use I’ll keep you on. Go and join the rest of them.” He pointed to a small group standing by a heap of dressed stone near the shore. Beside them the tower was probing skyward. Kenneth’s eyes widened in amazement at the sight of it. He had never imagined that human hands could build something so tall. He had nothing to compare it with, except the Tower of Babel whose top reached up to heaven itself. He shuddered. Surely God had punished the men who raised it for their overweening pride? But this lighthouse was not created out of vainglory. It would be a blessing for sailors. He ran to join the other men.
For the next few days, he shifted stone blocks and timber from the carts to the lighthouse. It was muscle-straining work and he had to grit his teeth with the effort. He was used to building walls around fields and repairing storm-damaged piers. But these stones were larger and needed to be nudged together to form a dovetail. Soon his back was paining him so much that he doubted he could carry on. But five days into the job things changed. He had noticed one of the carters, a dour man, too quick to beat his horse when the poor beast was doing its best. The fellow was bringing in the last load of stone from the makeshift harbor at Loch a’Bhràighe. In his rush he shouldered one of the other men out of the way, making him stumble and lose his grip on the stone he was supporting. Feeling it wobble, he leapt back with a shout and let the stone come crashing down. The carter didn’t jump out of the way in time and a corner fell onto his toes. He screamed in agony and was led away cursing and leaning heavily on two workmates.
“It’s a damned nuisance,” Kenneth heard Menzies complain.
“I’m used to horses,” Kenneth said. “I can take his place.”
“Ah, it’s you again, popping up like a bad penny. Is there anything you can’t turn your hand to? Very well. I’ll give you a try.”
The accident seemed to be a good omen. Kenneth enjoyed working with horses and had a gift for it. He soon had the measure of the shaggy haired garron, knowing when to coax and when to be stern. His family had kept a horse on their croft in Ardelve. Papa had never named him. He was just Each, or “Horse.” He did all the heavy work. Dragging the plough over the thin, rock-strewn soil, hauling up cartloads of seaweed from the shore and bringing the dried peats home from the moor. But how boy and beast had enjoyed the white summer nights when the sun scarcely went to bed. Kenneth would clamber up on the sweaty back, wide as the hull of a rowing boat and rub his face in the ticklish mane. Then the horse would strike out into the sea, his nose furrowing the waves. Each was his very own water horse but not one of the usual, wicked tricksters who lured a rider on his back so that he could drown him in deep water. Rather he was a magical horse who could swim tirelessly forever, past the Trotternish ridge of Skye, the last finger on the outstretched palm of the island. Gliding over the Minch to the outermost edge of the Western Isles through the great, empty ocean to America. So many others had made that journey but they had traveled on an everyday ship, not on an enchanted horse.
Leading the horse backward and forward from the harbor was certainly an easier job than lifting blocks of stone. This horse was nameless, too. So Kenneth christened him Each. “You’re not as handsome or as wise as your namesake. So don’t be getting any ideas.” The horse snickered and twitched his ears. Two days later Menzies came up to Kenneth, tossing his wages in the air so that he had to lunge to catch the coins.
“You’ll do.”
That night he settled down early in the bothy, curling up in the straw before the others returned. He didn’t talk much to the other men. Their swallowed Lowland accents were hard to follow. It was easier to understand the Irishmen among them. At least they spoke a sort of Gaelic. They woke him up when they trudged in later, laughing and pushing each other. They must have got hold of
some drink, even though it was forbidden. Pretending to be asleep, he felt aggrieved that they hadn’t asked him to join them. Still he had to save his money for more important things.
After a while the others settled down but an hour or so later Kenneth lurched awake, his heart thumping in his ears. What was that scuffling noise behind his head? Something tugging at the clothes he used as a pillow. A rat? No, he could hear a wheezing human breath. He reached back and his hands gripped an ankle. Pulling hard he made the figure stumble. Kenneth leapt to his feet and kicked the man’s legs from under him, sending him sprawling. Straddling him, he grabbed a handful of matted hair, twisting his head back.
“After my money, you filthy Irish tinker?” he hissed, not wanting to wake up the rest of them.
“No. Surely I was only after my own bed.” Kenneth let him get up and shamble off. None of the humped forms around them stirred. He checked the coins were still in his jacket pocket before lying down again. How could he keep his money safe? Sleepless, he waited for daybreak.
As it was the Sabbath his time was his own. He slipped out from between the snoring, beached bodies and strode over the moor toward Big Harbour. That was where the old widow, Janet MacKenzie lived, so Jeannie had told him. He smiled as he remembered how he had come across her by chance. It wasn’t long after he started working on Raasay, the island that hung like a teardrop close to Skye’s eastern cheek. Hunger, both for food and for the chance of a different life, had driven him from his home. He had been glad to escape from the grim sadness in the house. His mother’s haggard face and his father’s gloomy silence as they stared blindly into the fire in the evenings. They had never got back on their feet again after the potato blight. Starvation prowled outside the walls of the house, howled down the chimney and rattled at the door. When the fishing season ended, he couldn’t bear to go back home. He heard that the landlord on Raasay wanted men from the mainland to help on the estate. It seemed odd that there weren’t enough locals to do the work. Out of the ten of them taken on that winter, eight were outsiders like himself. The two from the Home Farm were tight lipped about George Rainey, the laird, but Kenneth didn’t ask any questions. Earning money to send home was what mattered.
He was amazed to see how the landscape of the estate had been tamed and made fertile. When spring came, he gazed at the froth of blossom and the soft green leaves of the apple trees in the walled garden. Even more wondrous was the twisting vine in the glasshouse, with its swelling clumps of grapes. He had heard of vines from the parables in the New Testament but he had no idea what they looked like. How he wished his mama was there to see them, too.
Kenneth picked up some English. So when visitors arrived at the Big House for shooting and fishing he was told to help. One day in May he sailed with the guests to the rocky north end of the island. They anchored in the open gape of Loch Arnish. The English gentlemen with their whinnying voices clattered ashore and Kenneth was left in charge of the boat. Once they had gone he jumped out to stretch his legs, whistling as he strolled through a small birch wood. The air was drenched with the sultry haze of bluebells. The path opened out into a stretch of pasture where some women were lifting dripping blankets out of buckets. They hung them on heather ropes strung between the trees where they flapped, landlocked sails struggling to free themselves. Girls were darting among the washing and calling to each other, gulls above the rigging. His eyes caught one lass, in particular. Her dark hair rippled in a long tail down her back as she skimmed bare footed, long limbs sprouting from an outgrown dress. She swerved, salmon sleek, past the arms stretched out to catch her. Then she hurled herself face down on the grass close to where he stood entranced at the edge of the wood. She pressed her nose into a tuft of late primroses, laughing as the petals made her sneeze.
Suddenly she frowned and looked about her as if she sensed his watching eyes. He walked up to her and introduced himself.
“Well, Kenneth MacRae from Ardelve, I’m Jeannie, the daughter of Norman MacLeod and I’ve lived here in Torran all my seventeen years. My family are here, apart from Granny MacKenzie who’s over in Rona, right on the beach at Big Harbour. Have you heard of her?”
He shook his head.
“Well you should have. So what are you doing here?”
“I work for Mr. Rainey. I’ve brought up some gentlemen from the Big House.” He hesitated. “I wonder, would you mind if I came to see you again when I’m not working?”
“Would I mind!”
His face fell at the contempt in her voice, “I’ve good prospects,” he stammered.
“Aye, and there’s blood on any money that comes from that devil, George Rainey. You must know how he drove the people from their homes. Old, young, sick and dying. Burned their houses down in front of them.”
“I didn’t know.”
She stared at him, “You don’t know much, do you? Don’t want to know, you mean.” She sprinted away, her long hair swinging. He started to run after her but the giggles and shrieks of the other girls stopped him.
“Would you see me if I find different work?” he shouted after her. She half turned and tossed her head before running on. Was that a shake of the head? More likely she hadn’t heard his words above the mobbing of the other girls. Feeling foolish he returned to the boat. He climbed aboard and sat glumly, trailing his fingers through the water. She’s just a silly, headstrong lassie, he told himself, but in the days that followed she kept shimmering through his thoughts. She had made him see how lonely he was. And he couldn’t forget what she said about the laird. No wonder the local men wouldn’t work for him. There was nothing for it but to find a way to earn untainted money.
So he had determined to make his way to this bleak island where the Northern Lighthouse Board had decreed that a lighthouse be built. But how to get there with no boat? He remembered once seeing a stag swimming across to Rona in the rutting season, noble head and antlers held above the waves. He had smiled at the deer’s single-mindedness to reach the hinds on the far island. Now he thought, if a beast can be brave so can I. He was a strong swimmer, thanks to all those summer evenings frolicking in the water with Each. As a boy he had been proud of his rare skill in the water.
“Why is it most fishermen never learn to swim?” his father had said to him one day when Kenneth came home whistling, hair dripping wet and body glowing after a dip in the sea. He shrugged. He had grown weary of Papa’s dispiriting comments. “If you fall overboard swimming only prolongs your torment. Better to drown quickly than slowly.”
But I would rather have a chance of life, no matter how small, Kenneth had thought but didn’t bother saying. Now he looked at the powerful currents sweeping through Caol Rona, the narrows between Raasay and Rona. He could use the rocky islands as steppingstones. From Eilean Tigh, the northern fingertip of Raasay, he could swim in stages to Eilean an Fhraoich and over to Sgeir nan Eun before reaching Garbh Eilean which was linked to Rona by a causeway. He set off on a warm day and all went well at first but it was harder going than he had imagined. Struggling against the current between the two middle islands he felt his legs hardening to stone. A deadly chill was creeping up his body and numbing his heart. Was he doomed to drown slowly, just as Papa had warned? Then he remembered being astride Each as he plunged into the waves. The memory brought a flutter of warmth to his body as he neared Sgeir nan Eun. His hands scraped on the sharp rocks, slimy with seabird droppings. As he hauled himself ashore he noticed splatters of blood from a deep gash on the sole of his foot. He was too cold to feel any pain. Almost there now, no time to rest. He hurled his exhausted body into the water again. When he finally crawled ashore on Rona, he couldn’t haul himself upright. He was lucky that a sharp sighted crofter was curious enough to investigate and help him to shelter. “What a tale, one worthy of the wild MacRaes,” the old man said, when Kenneth bade him farewell after a night’s rest. Was the bodach praising him or berating him?
He remembered his swim as he climbed over the moor to the Widow MacKenzie�
�s house. How could Jeannie not be stirred by his feat? And she would surely approve of his new job? Hope made him skip along and soon he found himself looking down on Big Harbour. It was shaped like the head of a diving bird, its long beak probing the shore and its eye a clump of glistening rocks. As he dropped down to the shore he began to doubt himself again. Jeannie was so young, seven years younger than him, barely out of childhood. She would have banished him from her mind. And he hadn’t given a good account of himself when they met. Maybe she was already spoken for? He couldn’t delude himself that she had shown any interest in him at all. Ah, there was the house, a big one, built on the beach itself. Would the widow banish him, too?
Well, he wasn’t going to waste the journey. He tapped on the front door. A young serving girl flushed as she showed him in. While he waited for the mistress of the house he peered around the front room, thinking how comfortable it was. The widow clearly wasn’t poor. But what was that in the window? He fingered the brass base. A fishy smell rose from it and he realized that it must be a lamp, an enormous one, far bigger than any of the ship’s lanterns he had ever seen. It would cost a fortune in oil. He supposed that Rainey owned similar lamps, but he had never been inside his house to know. What luxury to light such a lamp and restore the room to daylight. Tom was used to stinking stub ends of tallow candles.
He paced the room, kneading his cap before stuffing it into his jacket pocket. Seeing mud on his boots he spat on his fingers and wiped it away.
There was a rustle and she appeared, sombre as a minister in black. Her expression was severe as she asked him his business. She listened in silence as he told her about his family, his travels to find work and his wonderment at meeting her granddaughter.
“So you believe that Jeannie sees you as a suitor?”
He flushed as he realized how his story must sound like a romance conjured up in his imagination.
“No, not yet. But that’s because I worked for Rainey. Now I have a different job, a worthwhile one. Surely she’ll change her mind?” He tried to keep the desperation out of his voice.
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