God's Highlander (16 page)

M
AIRI WALKED AS far as her home with Wyatt. There was a vague feeling of embarrassment between them, although all the long silences originated with the Eskaig preacher. Mairi chattered about the problem of Donnie, her worries about the other brothers, life at the shielings…. Anything except her relationship with the man walking beside her.

Not until they were in sight of the stunted trees sheltering the Ross cot did Wyatt mention the incident that had kept him silent during the long walk from the shielings.

‘Mairi, I want to speak to you. About what happened last night.'

Mairi stopped walking and turned to look at him.

‘Do you mean the attack on the poor calf by the foxes?' she asked innocently. ‘They've found the foxes' lair. Donnie will lie in wait for them today. It won't happen again.'

‘That isn't what I want to talk about.'

‘Oh? Then, perhaps you have an answer to the problem of Donnie and Seonaid Fraser? I'll be obliged to you if you have.'

‘Mairi, you know very well it's
us
I want to discuss.'

‘Are you going to tell me you're sorry once again?'

‘No … well,
yes
….'

Never in all his life had Wyatt been so tongue-tied and confused. Mairi did not suffer the same problem.

‘I don't want to listen.'

She began to walk on, faster than before. When Wyatt caught up with her and tried to speak again, she cut him short.

‘You're so anxious to apologise that I can only believe you wish nothing had happened. All right, forget it, if that's what you want. I won't tell anyone that “the minister” kissed me. Anyway, I expect you
kissed so many girls when you were a soldier that forgetting one more won't matter too much to you.'

When Wyatt brought her to a halt Mairi looked up at him defiantly, only her eyes giving any hint of the solid cold unhappiness inside her.

‘I'm not apologising for kissing you. I
wanted
to. I … I just don't think it should have happened the way it did, hidden by darkness. I ought to have said something to you first. I don't want you getting the idea … the idea you
have
. There have been few women in my life. You're very special to me. I wanted you to know this.'

It was the most difficult speech he had ever put together, far harder than the sermon at his induction as minister of Eskaig, but the expression on Mairi's face told Wyatt it had been a success.

‘Thank you for saying that, Wyatt. About it being special, I mean. It was special for me, too.
Very
special. As for it being dark when you kissed me … it's not dark now.'

He kissed her, and she clung to him to make it last as long as the breath in her would allow. When they reluctantly drew apart, she said shakily: ‘I hope you're not going to apologise again.'

‘No.' He took her hand and began walking towards the hidden cot. ‘But I think we need to talk a little.'

Their talk had to be deferred. They had walked no more than a few paces when a voice hailed them from the direction of the cot. They looked up to see a tall young man waving to them.

‘It's Dugald!' Mairi released Wyatt's hand and returned the greeting. Dugald was one of her brothers. ‘The boys must be back.'

However, all the Ross brothers had not yet returned from their sheep-‘buying' expedition to the lowlands. When Mairi enquired about the others Dugald replied vaguely that they had sent him on ahead to let their father know of their plans. They should be arriving with the sheep in a few days' time.

‘You had no trouble?' Mairi put the question as her father came from the house and greeted the Eskaig minister with a nod.

‘It was the easiest trip we've ever made,' replied her brother proudly. ‘You've never seen such sheep. You'd think we'd rounded up cattle by mistake!'

Silencing his son with a frown, Eneas Ross asked Mairi: ‘What made you think there might have been trouble?'

When Mairi hesitated, Wyatt said: ‘I told Mairi of something I heard
before leaving Glasgow. The authorities were planning to deal with an increase in sheep-stealing by mustering the militia. They believe the Highlanders are resorting to their old ways. They are determined to put a stop to it.'

‘If there's a drought in the lowlands, it's blamed on the Highlanders,' retorted Eneas Ross. ‘If they come here seeking their sheep, they'll end up chasing their own tails. They'll find nothing.'

Eneas Ross's manner was scornful, but Wyatt knew the ex-Scots Guardsman was no fool. He would heed Wyatt's warning and take whatever action might be necessary.

Dugald Ross was absent from the meal of bread, cheese and new-made butter brought from the shielings by Mairi. No excuse was made for the young man's absence, but Wyatt had seen father and son engaged in earnest conversation a short while before.

Later, when Wyatt was preparing to leave the cot, Magdalene Ross called from where she was working at the kitchen table beneath a window, to say that two horsemen were approaching from the direction of Eskaig.

With thoughts of the militia uppermost in his mind, Wyatt was first to reach the door. Magdalene Ross had been only partly correct. The riders were still far off in the distance, but it was possible to see that one of them was mounted upon a donkey.

It was Coll Kennedy. The other rider was well wrapped in a cloak and a hat and was unrecognisable at this distance. Not until the horse was urged forward at a brisk trot was Wyatt able to see that its rider was not a man, but a woman. It was Evangeline Garrett.

Wyatt was even more surprised when the horse was pulled to a halt only a few paces from the gate where he was now standing. Evangeline leaped to the ground and ran to embrace him warmly, an expression of great relief on her face.

‘Wyatt, where have you
been
? We were all so worried when you never returned last night. I wanted to organise a search party for you. I would have, too, had Alasdair not persuaded me to wait until today. At this very moment he and the Eskaig villagers are searching around the banks of Loch Eil. What have you been doing?'

‘I've been at the shielings. I held a prayer meeting there yesterday evening.'

‘Why didn't you tell someone where you were going? When
Preacher Kennedy rode over from Letterfinlay this morning I made him ride straight out with me again to help search for you. It was he who suggested we come up here. Didn't you realise how worried we'd all be? Oh, it doesn't matter. You're safe, that's the important thing.'

Evangeline hugged him again, and Coll Kennedy's eyebrows disappeared beneath the wide brim of the hat he wore pulled low down on his forehead.

Breaking free from the factor's daughter, Wyatt extended a hand to the mule-riding minister. ‘I'm sorry if I've caused you to extend an already long ride.'

‘No one need apologise for bringing me up here. Quite apart from the beauty of the mountains hereabouts, I know the identity of the man who supplies Eneas Ross with his whisky. There's not a distiller in Scotland to compare with him.'

‘You'll be treated to new-baked bread and butter fresh from the shielings, too, I've no doubt. Mairi brought some home not two hours since.'

‘You've been to the shielings with the Ross girl?' Evangeline Garrett's delight at having found Wyatt suddenly vanished.

‘With Mairi and about a hundred others.' Wyatt would not allow Evangeline's disapproval to make him feel guilty. ‘It's the first time a minister's been there to hold a prayer meeting. It was a great occasion. '

‘No doubt. Are you coming to Eskaig now to help me explain how I've made a fool of myself?'

‘I'm deeply touched by your concern for me, Evangeline, but before I return to Eskaig there are a few things I want to say to the Ross family.'

‘I see. Well, I doubt if I am very welcome here. Thank you for accompanying me, Minister Kennedy. I expect I shall see you again in Eskaig.'

Mounting her horse, Evangeline Garrett cast an angry glance in Wyatt's direction before tugging hard on the reins and heading her horse back towards Eskaig.

‘A young lady with a mercurial temperament, I fear,' commented Coll Kennedy. ‘But attractive enough. She'll no doubt tempt some besotted young man into wedlock one day.'

‘No doubt,' agreed Wyatt. ‘But you haven't ridden all this way to
gossip about the marriage prospects of the factor's daughter. On the way inside you can tell me why you came to visit me.'

‘We'll need longer than that to discuss my news, Wyatt. Things are happening in our church that are making thinking men uneasy. The time is coming when a decision must be made. It's vitally important that it's the
right
one. We'll discuss it on the way back to Eskaig. First, I intend to enjoy an hour or two of traditional crofting hospitality.'

Eneas Ross met the two men at the door of the cot and gravely shook hands with Coll Kennedy. ‘We met at Preacher Jamieson's induction, but I never expected to welcome you to my house.
Two
preachers in one day! The good Lord must be making amends for all the years when we never saw a one.'

‘I'll leave the saving of your soul to Minister Jamieson, Eneas. I came up in the mountains to find him and I'm resting here a while out of respect for the man who keeps you supplied with whisky. He has no equal anywhere in the Highlands.'

Eneas Ross's face split in a wide smile. He recognised in the Letterfinlay minister a man who understood the essentials of life, minister of the Church or not. ‘I've something inside I know you'll enjoy, Preacher. It's supposed to be twenty years old. I wouldn't swear my life away on its age, but I promise you'll never have tasted a finer dram anywhere.'

As Eneas Ross talked, Wyatt was waiting for Mairi to appear. When the whisky arrived and she had not put in an appearance, he asked where she was.

‘Gone back to the shielings.' The surprising reply came from Magdalene Ross. ‘She followed you out when you went to meet your friend, then came back to the cot and said she was going. Why she should be in such a hurry I don't know. Didn't she say goodbye to you?'

Wyatt was deeply hurt that Mairi had returned to the shielings without speaking to him first. He wanted to have another talk with her. Then he remembered the enthusiasm with which Evangeline Garrett had greeted him. He thought he knew why Mairi had returned to the shielings so abruptly, and the knowledge would trouble him until they met again and he was able to explain….

O
N THE WAY back to Eskaig, Coll Kennedy told Wyatt what had brought him from Letterfinlay. The donkey-riding minister had consumed an astonishing quantity of Eneas Ross's whisky, declaring it to be quite as good as had been promised. However, the news he had to impart to Wyatt would have sobered even the most drunken preacher.

There had been another court ruling about the right of a parish to elect its own minister. A man who had achieved notoriety for paying close attention to other men's wives when their husbands were absent was presented to a living by the landowner, in spite of strong local objections. When the time came for his induction only the local innkeeper signed the minister's call. At the same time, every male member of the parish put his name to a petition calling for the landowner to nominate someone else.

So unsuited for his post was the new minister that when the landowner refused to heed the wishes of his tenants the Church itself set aside the unwanted preacher's appointment.

Determined not to be beaten, the landowner placed the matter before a secular court. The court found for the landowner. Disinclined to flout the law of the land, the presbytery responsible for the area agreed to the induction.

The Assembly, the ‘supreme court' of the Church, immediately brought its full weight to bear upon what had become a power struggle between Church and State. The Assembly issued an order prohibiting the presbytery from settling the unwanted minister upon the objecting parishioners.

When it became clear that the presbytery intended to put State before Church, the Assembly took the unprecedented step of suspending
the ministers of the presbytery, thus prohibiting them from conducting any services.

Ignoring the orders of the Assembly, the dismissed presbytery went ahead with the induction. At the ceremony the parishioners gathered at their church and petitioned the presbytery to reconsider its action. When their plea was ignored, the people rose as one and left their place of worship, never to return.

The action of both sides had split the Church of Scotland apart. When the House of Lords, the highest court in the realm, upheld the findings of the lower courts a vast body of opinion within the Church was dismayed. It was a very strongly held belief that only the parishioners themselves could tie the pastoral knot that bound a minister to his flock.

Even now battle-lines were being drawn, with ministers lining up on both sides of the argument. A meeting of those who objected to State interference in the Church was to take place in Edinburgh in November. The decisions made here would decide the future of the Church of Scotland. Coll Kennedy had come to ask Wyatt where he stood, and whether he would accompany the Letterfinlay minister to the Edinburgh conference.

Wyatt had no hesitation. The conflict had been bubbling for a long time, and he knew what he had to do.

‘You already know where I stand, Coll. I was ready to give up the living of Eskaig when I believed the people didn't want me. It's
they
who must decide who they want as their minister. That's the rock on which our church is built. If we don't fight this issue, we're only one step short of having the State appoint ministers without reference to either Church or people. The State won't give way on this question, and the Church
can't
. Only the Lord himself knows the answer to the problem. Where does our own presbytery stand?'

Coll Kennedy changed position on his donkey, easing some of his aching muscles. ‘They are no more united than the Church itself. Half are for carrying on as though nothing has happened. The others want to break away and form a free church, based upon Presbyterian principles.'

Coll Kennedy was echoing the view put forward by Alasdair Burns when the subject had been brought up soon after the teacher's arrival at Eskaig. It was a radical solution, not the fruits of reasoned argument among churchmen.

‘I would be happy if it were possible to settle matters within the Church itself, but I fear it's already too late for reconciliation.'

That evening Alasdair Burns joined the two ministers for a meal in the manse, and the crisis within the Church was the sole subject of conversation.

Alasdair Burns was of the same opinion as the two ministers.

‘I can't see that you have any alternative but to break away and form a new church. The sooner you face facts and take action, the better it will be for everyone. The longer you leave it, the harder it will be. You're merely giving the “Establishment” time to make a Disruption as difficult as possible.'

‘It will be difficult enough anyway,' declared Wyatt. ‘Imagine the decision facing a minister who has given a lifetime to the Church. He'll need to rebel against all he has worked for and begin a new life at a time when he should be looking forward to peaceful old age. This without a home or a kirk. What of the wives and dependants of ministers? How will they react to being turned out of their homes?'

‘A man must be true to his beliefs,' said the schoolteacher. ‘Nothing worthwhile has ever been achieved without suffering and sacrifice.'

‘Sacrifice is worthwhile only if it fully achieves its end,' said Coll Kennedy. ‘Unfortunately, I fear many of our older ministers might go to their graves believing their sacrifices to have been in vain.'

‘I thought Christianity promised us nothing in
this
life, all the rewards being saved for the next? Surely your ministers will find their answers waiting for them in the great world to come?'

‘I'm sure they will,' said Coll Kennedy. ‘But even those who are about to achieve that happy state will want to know those they leave behind will enjoy a degree of comfort and security.'

‘Don't underestimate the strength of the wives and families of our ministers,' said Wyatt. ‘Many have been the strength behind the Church for years. You'll not find them wanting when the call for action comes.'

‘I think there's one thing you're both overlooking,' said Alasdair Burns. ‘When the smoke of battle has cleared the only winners are likely to be the landowners. All over the Highlands all that's standing in the way of wholesale clearances is a few articulate ministers. Take away the backing of an established church and the clearances will
resume on a scale that will empty the Highlands of people faster than sheep can be driven in.'

 

Factor John Garrett rode up to the Ross croft in company with the sheriff-substitute, ten constables and a party of twenty sore-footed militiamen who formed a ragged line in front of the cot gate and leaned heavily upon their muskets.

The constables dismounted, and they and the militiamen stood in two groups, talking nervously as John Garrett rode his horse through the narrow gateway and up to the door of the cot, the sheriff-substitute behind him.

In the doorway Eneas Ross stood silently watching their approach. His position in the doorway also prevented any of the hot-headed younger members of his family from leaving the cot and coming into contact with the forces of the law.

‘Ross.' John Garrett spoke above the sound of a dog which darted from the house and was snapping at the legs of the factor's horse, causing it to back off nervously, trampling through the greenery of a vegetable patch. ‘The sheriff-substitute's here to investigate a serious case of sheep-stealing. Damn you, man! Call off the dog or I'll have one of the militiamen put a musket-ball where its brain should be.'

Eneas Ross growled out a low command, and the dog returned to the cot immediately, pausing in the doorway to glance up at the crofter with a look that might have been accompanied by a wink had it been human.

‘Those sheep out there….' The factor leaned forward and indicated a flock of sheep grazing not far from the house. ‘Are you going to claim they arrived in the dead of night and you know nothing of them?'

‘Why should I say such a thing? They belong to me.'

John Garrett sank back in his saddle, looking pleased with himself. ‘I think we've found your stolen sheep, Sheriff. Eneas Ross has never run sheep in his life. You'll have the culprits here, too. Ross's sons will be skulking not far away. They'll be the Highlanders who were seen driving sheep in this direction. Take the lot of them. The Kilmalie estate will be well rid of them.'

As the sheriff-substitute turned in the saddle to call orders to his men, Eneas Ross said: ‘You've always been a man given to hasty decisions, Factor. It would no doubt have brought you trouble long ago had you not enjoyed the protection of the landlord.'

To the other man, Eneas Ross said: ‘I expected more of a Scotsman – even a lowlander such as yourself. A “sheriff”, did I hear the factor say?'

‘Sheriff-substitute,' corrected the horseman. ‘But the offices carry the same powers. If you have something to say, you'd better make it quick, before I call up my constables and the militiamen.'

Eneas Ross was unperturbed by the sheriff-substitute's threat. ‘If I've understood correctly, you've come seeking stolen sheep. You'll not be finding them here, even if you brought a thousand men with you. There are seventy-nine sheep out there. What's left of one that broke its leg is in the stewing-pot. I have a receipt for eighty sheep from Andy Graham of Inverness, dated only a week ago.'

‘Where did
you
get the money to buy eighty sheep?' The factor made no attempt to hide his scorn, but it was lost on Eneas Ross.

‘My rent has always been paid on the day it's due to you, Factor. How I manage my holding is my own business.'

The sheriff-substitute spoke to Eneas Ross without looking at John Garrett. ‘We're looking for two hundred sheep, Mr Ross. I can see without having to count there are no more than eighty sheep out there. Show me your receipt and we'll be on our way with apologies for having troubled you.'

The mere suggestion of an apology being made to the Highland crofter had John Garrett writhing in his saddle, but he said nothing. His own power, great as it might be, was limited to the estate of Lord Kilmalie. The sheriff-substitute exercised all the powers bestowed upon him by law, and it extended over a much wider area. It would not be wise to offend him.

‘Mairi, will you bring that bill of sale to me.'

Mairi had come to the cot with more cheeses from the shielings earlier that day. Things were going Eneas Ross's way, and he would not put his advantage at risk by having one of his sons come from the house and make an unthinking comment to antagonise the sheriff-substitute.

Mairi brought the bill of sale and handed it up to the sheriff-substitute.

As she stood waiting for the lowland man to read it John Garrett stopped his angry fidgeting. He had seen this girl on a number of occasions before today, but realised he had never really
looked
at her
before. She was tall and slim, and the sun she had acquired at the shielings went well with her long black hair.

‘Thank you, young lady.' The sheriff-substitute handed back the bill of, sale to Mairi and inclined his head to Eneas Ross, who had not moved from the doorway. ‘We need trouble you no more, Mr Ross. My thanks for your patience. May my men have some water before we leave?'

‘There's a burn just down there.' Mairi pointed to where the slope of the land dropped from view. ‘It's where we fetch water for the cot – and kindly keep your horses from trampling down the banks about the laundry-stone.'

‘Of course.' The sheriff-substitute nodded to the barefoot but haughty crofter girl, amusement taking the place of offence.

John Garrett remained looking down at Mairi for a moment or two more. He had jerked his horse around to follow his companion when Eneas Ross called: ‘Sheriff! When my boys brought our sheep down from Inverness they said a flock of sheep, maybe two hundred or more, had crossed the Great Glen near Laggan, maybe ten days before, heading north. They were being driven by Sutherland men. You've a deal of riding yet if they're the men you're after.'

A wave of the sheriff-substitute's hand signalled acknowledgement, but it gave the groaning militiamen no indication whether they would be required to trek for another hundred miles or so across the mountains in search of the missing lowland sheep.

Pulling his horse to a halt beside Mairi, John Garrett said softly: ‘A girl like you is wasted up here in the mountains. Come down to Corpach and I'll find work for you in my house. It won't be too arduous, I promise you.'

‘I'll also be expected to warm your bed, no doubt? No thank you, Factor. I don't much care for some of those who've been there before. If I
do
come to your house, it'll be to present you with a bill calling for payment for the backache that went into planting the vegetables your horse has trampled on today.'

John Garrett put finger and thumb inside a waistcoat pocket. Pulling out a golden half-sovereign, he flicked it to the ground at Mairi's feet.

‘That should make good any damage. Keep it for yourself. It will serve as a reminder that there's more to be had at Corpach if you change your mind.'