God's Highlander (4 page)

There it was again. The assumption that Wyatt was ‘the landlord's man'. But this was neither the time nor the place to put the young poacher right.

‘Can you walk well enough to take me to your father?'

‘What do you want with him? It's me who's been taking the laird's salmon, not my pa.'

‘I don't care who's been taking what, or from where. You need to have shot removed from your leg. If we can't trust a doctor, then
I'll
need to do it, and I have neither knife nor fire here. Will you take me to your home, or would you rather come down to the manse, in Eskaig?'

Ewan Munro looked at Wyatt uncertainly. He had no intention of accompanying the minister anywhere near the village. Turning away abruptly, he limped off into the mist, leading Wyatt further into the mountains.

In spite of Ewan's wounded leg, Wyatt was hard put to keep up with him. They had been walking for at least half a mile when Wyatt smelled wood-smoke in the damp air. A few minutes later they reached a small clearing in the heart of the thick undergrowth that choked much of the glen floor.

Here the Munro family had their ‘home'. It was no more than a lean-to shelter composed of grass, tree-branches and turfs, supported by two growing saplings. Beneath the scant cover provided by the structure a man lay on his side beneath a single threadbare blanket, his face turned away from the opening. The remains of another blanket lay on the damp ground beside him. On this, two very young girls were playing. Despite the chill and wet weather one was as naked as the day she was born, no more than a year before.

Three more girls were squatting beside a low-burning fire. They were watching as a woman Wyatt presumed to be their mother turned a wooden spit on which a hare was impaled, above the flames.

The woman was so startled when she looked up to see Wyatt emerging from the undergrowth behind her son that she dropped the hare, and it fell in the fire.

One of the small girls pounced on the meat immediately. Lifting it carefully to safety, she replaced the spit in the forks of two sticks driven in the ground on either side of the fire.

‘It's all right, Mother.' Wyatt used the term in a bid to put the woman at ease, but in spite of her large family she could have been no older than himself. ‘I've brought Ewan home. He has a bad wound on his leg. It needs to be treated right away. I'll do it, if you wish, but I'll need a sharp knife. Would you have one?'

‘Who's that? Elsa … who's that out there with you?' The voice was that of a querulous old man, yet Wyatt found it hard to believe an old man had sired the Munro brood.

‘It's all right, Pa….' At the first sound of the man's voice Ewan Munro had moved to the lean-to shelter. He leaned low over the blanket-covered figure to reassure him. ‘It's the new preacher from Eskaig.'

‘Preacher? I don't need no preacher. Give me another day or two to get back on my feet and we'll be on our way again….'

The declaration ended breathlessly, as though the speaker had overexerted himself. Wyatt moved closer to the lean-to.

‘I've brought your son home. He has a piece or two of lead in his leg. It's not serious, but they need to come out quickly. I need a sharp knife.'

The sick man struggled to sit up in bed, but even as Wyatt stooped to help him he fell back again.

‘I'm sorry. I didn't realise you were such a sick man.'

Ewan Munro's father rolled his head from side to side impatiently. ‘I'm a mite weak, that's all. I'll be as right as summer tomorrow. I always am. Elsa, give the preacher my knife.'

Elsa Munro hesitated for a moment, as though reluctant to obey her husband's breathless instruction. Then she brushed past Wyatt and from the lower end of the lean-to pulled out a bag made from faded tartan cloth. Again she hesitated, looking at Wyatt before plunging her hand inside the bag. Lifting out a dirk that had no place in the possession of a ragged and homeless Highland family, she handed the weapon to Wyatt. Housed in a scabbard of shiny black leather heavily ornamented with gilt, the knife's handle was designed in the shape of an inverted thistle and carved from highly polished ebony. Inspecting the knife more closely, Wyatt saw a silver ‘72' worked into the base of the handle, close to the hilt.

Wyatt looked up quickly and caught the expression of apprehension on the face of Elsa Munro. ‘This is the dirk of an officer in the Seventy-Second Regiment. How did you come by it?'

‘It isn't stolen, I swear.' Elsa Munro was close to tears. ‘Lachlan's never stolen a thing in his life—'less it was a salmon or a hare to feed his family.'

‘She's right, Preacher. But it's not usual for a churchman to have such a knowledge of military weapons. The dirk was given to me by a lieutenant in the Seventy-Second. I was his batman.'

Wyatt leaned low over the sick man. Lachlan Munro was unshaven, and his face was pinched and gaunt as a result of the fever that racked his body – but it was a face Wyatt had seen before. Long ago, and far away.

‘And you served him well,
Sergeant
Munro – the regiment, too. But what on earth is a brave man like you doing out here on the mountains with no roof over your head?'

This time nothing could prevent Lachlan Munro from struggling to a sitting position. As Wyatt kneeled down in order to support him, the man looked hard at the preacher and his face lit up with sheer delight.

‘Captain Jamieson. Well, I'm damned – begging your pardon, Captain.'

‘You'll not be damned if I have anything to do with it, Sergeant. But what are you doing
here
?'

Lachlan Munro sagged back against the supporting arm, and Wyatt gently lowered the sick man to the ground.

‘You've asked a good question, Captain – sorry,
Minister
. But it's small wonder I never recognised you as a preacher. You was a hero to all of us….'

‘It's
your
story I want to hear, Lachlan. You were going to tell me what's happened to you.'

‘I caught the fever in Africa, Captain, same as you. More than half the regiment went down with it. I was shipped home. Must have been eighteen months after you. When I got back I discovered the factor had turned my family from the house. Sheep were grazing over what Garrett's men had left standing. Took me three months to learn where Elsa, Ewan and the others had gone. I found 'em all right, but they'd have been better off without me. Twice I've managed to get work, but each time the fever's come back and laid me up again. No one wants to employ a man who's lying abed ill as often as he's working.'

Wyatt was well acquainted with the African fever. It was the reason he had been invalided out of the Army. He, too, still suffered recurrences that would strike him down for days at a time.

‘How do you live?'

‘Best way I can, Captain. Sometimes a nice salmon will jump from the loch and land at my feet. Hares have been known to drop dead when I look at 'em too. You know how it is. If they don't … well, a man can't sit back and watch his family starve.' Lachlan Munro turned his head, and his eyes found his son. ‘When I'm laid low Ewan needs to be the provider. He's a good boy. A man couldn't ask for a finer son. We'd have all starved for certain, had it not been for Ewan.'

Talk of the boy reminded Wyatt of what he had to do. When he told Lachlan Munro, the sick ex-soldier closed his eyes as though in sudden pain. Then he nodded. ‘Do what you have to, Captain. He won't make a whimper, I promise you. He's a brave lad. He'll make a good soldier one day. It's all he thinks about. Ewan, come here, boy.'

When Ewan came to stand beside his father, Lachlan Munro said: ‘The captain here was in my regiment, in Africa. He was a sergeant once, but he was so brave they made him an officer. I've told him
you're
brave, too. He'll no doubt hurt you with what needs to be done, but I've said you'll not cry. Am I right?'

The expression on Ewan Munro's suddenly pale face was an uncertain and apprehensive mixture of fear and pride. He nodded his head.

‘Good boy! Give me your hand now. While the captain's about his business I'll tell you what the Seventy-Second did in Africa, and why they made him an officer….'

Prising the lead pellets from Ewan Munro's leg took longer than Wyatt would have wished. Yet, apart from a whimper when the crude operation began and another when Wyatt needed to dig deep in the flesh of the thin leg for the last pellet, Ewan never made a sound. From somewhere behind him Wyatt could hear Elsa Munro crying softly, and one of the girls wept with her. Wyatt never looked round. Working as swiftly as he could, he hardly noticed the perspiration and drizzle running down his face.

When Wyatt eventually straightened up, his back and arms ached from the sheer tension of the operation he had just performed. ‘There, it's all done.'

Lachlan Munro was cradling his son in his arms and he blinked to clear his eyes. ‘He's fainted, Captain. It's not that he's a coward. He's only a wee lad….'

‘I've known grown men scream with less cause. He's a brave boy.' As he spoke, Wyatt was ripping up his clean linen kerchief to make a flimsy bandage. ‘You can be proud of him. But what's to be done about you –
all
of you?'

‘Don't you concern yourself with us, Captain. We'll be all right when I'm up and about again. Just give us a day or two, that's all.'

Wyatt looked about the makeshift camp. The abject poverty of the Munro family was painfully apparent.

‘This is no way for a loyal ex-sergeant of the Seventy-Second to live, Lachlan. You deserve better. So does your family. Come down to the village and see me when you're up and about again. In the mean-time…. '

Wyatt dug deep into his pockets. He was far from wealthy, but he knew he carried a half-guinea somewhere. Locating the small gold coin, he handed it to Elsa Munro. ‘Take this. Use it to buy food and whatever else you need. Build up the strength of your man – and Ewan's, too. Be sure to come down to Eskaig as soon as you're able. In the meantime I'll speak to the factor on your behalf.'

Elsa Munro accepted the coin and clasped both Wyatt's hands in her own. ‘God bless you, Minister. God bless you.'

‘His blessings on you and your family, too, Elsa. But He'll need a little help if you're to be provided with the material things of this life.'

W
YATT SET OUT for John Garrett's house early the next morning. It was fine and sunny now, although there was still a bank of cloud far out over the sea to the west. Wyatt knew his meeting with the factor was likely to be a stormy one, but he had accepted that the very nature of John Garrett made a clash between them inevitable. It might as well come sooner than later.

The factor was finishing his breakfast and gruffly invited Wyatt to sit down and share a pot of coffee with him. Declining the offer, Wyatt stated that he had come to the house to discuss business – estate business.

John Garrett looked up at his visitor and frowned. ‘What has estate business to do with a preacher? We've managed very well without you for a great many years.'

‘
You
might have been happy with things. Lachlan Munro and his family haven't.'

John Garrett's frown deepened, then suddenly cleared. ‘The ex-soldier? The man's a lazy scoundrel. I employed him on the estate for a while. So did one of the tenants over Glen Coe way. He did no more than two days' work for either of us before feigning sickness and failing to turn up for work.'

‘He was feigning nothing. He suffers from the same fever that had me discharged from the Army. It returns even now to lay me low, as it does to Munro.'

‘So that's it. Two ex-Army men standing together. Well,
I've
never been in the Army, and I'm concerned only with running Lord Kilmalie's estate at a profit. Lachlan Munro is nothing to me. In fact the sooner he's off Kilmalie land the better it will be for everyone. He's a thieving poacher.'

‘He's also an ex-sergeant of the Seventy-Second Regiment. He served with Lord Kilmalie's son in Africa, and served well. When his Lordship learns Munro returned from Africa only to find he'd been dispossessed I doubt if he'll share your views.'

‘You'll tell him?'

‘A letter will be on its way by nightfall.'

Charlotte Garrett appeared in the doorway, a coffee-pot in her hand. She wanted to approach the table but could see from the stance of the two men that they were involved in an argument. Her face registered anxious uncertainty.

John Garrett stood up abruptly, only the weight of the hardwood chair preventing it from toppling to the floor. ‘Come to my office.' Without waiting for a reply the factor strode to the doorway, pushing past his wife without a word to her.

Outside in the main hallway Evangeline was halfway down the stairs, a flimsy wrap thrown over her night attire. She was unprepared for her father's bellow of anger.

‘What do you think you're doing? I'll not have my daughter flaunting herself like some common Highland slut in front of a stranger. Get back to your room this minute.'

Unused to being spoken to by her father in such a manner, Evangeline opened her mouth to protest. Then she saw Wyatt emerge from the breakfast room. Her jaw sagged, and she gazed at him in dismay. Her hands went to her hair, where tight curls were held in place by a multicoloured selection of rag strips. She turned and fled, her protest forgotten.

In the estate manager's office, John Garrett reached down a large leather-bound book from a shelf and placed it upon a desk. ‘Close the door.'

As Wyatt complied with the gruff order, the factor turned the pages of the book until he found the one he was seeking. ‘Can you make sense of figures?'

‘I've kept accounts.'

‘Take a look through this book. When I came here the Kilmalie estate was barely breaking even. I've brought it into profit. Allowed to do things my way, I could make this the finest estate in the whole of Scotland.'

‘How? By getting rid of tenants in the same way you dispossessed Lachlan Munro?'

‘Highland tenants will never pay sufficient rent to make their landlords rich. How can they? They grow hardly enough to stay alive. A fair rent is beyond them. The answer is
sheep
. Keep tenants on land and it pays pennies. Put sheep in their place and you can begin to count the profit in pounds.'

‘It may make sense to the landlord. It doesn't to the dispossessed tenant.'

The factor shrugged. ‘My duty is to Lord Kilmalie, not to a bunch of ne'er-do-wells who spend no more than four months of the year spoiling good pasture with their goats and pigs. For the other eight months they're content to crouch over a fire inside a hut, moving only to scratch at a flea or a louse.'

Wyatt tried to control his anger. ‘I'm surprised you stay here if you despise the Highlanders so much. Especially as Lord Kilmalie doesn't share your views. He knows the Highlanders have supported their clan heads in war and peace for hundreds of years. He accepts his duty to them, as I do. That's why I've come here on behalf of Lachlan Munro. If you're not prepared to help him, I don't doubt Lord Kilmalie
will
.'

Wyatt turned to leave the office, but John Garrett called him back. ‘Wait! I can't give Munro his old place back. It's been pulled down, and sheep are grazing there now.'

‘Can you offer him somewhere else?'

‘There's a cottage on flat land at the far end of the loch, beyond Kinlocheil. Work needs to be done on the roof, but there's good land goes with it. Too good to waste on a man who's used to the mountains, but I suppose it's better than leaving it to stand idle.'

Taken by surprise at the offer, Wyatt eyed the factor speculatively. The offer had nothing to do with the advantage to the estate of having the cottage occupied and the land worked, of this he was certain. Neither was it because John Garrett had been defeated in argument. Either Lord Kilmalie had no knowledge of his factor's methods, or he had already warned Garrett about them. Wyatt wondered how much farther he could push the factor.

‘Lachlan Munro's wife said there were crops growing when she was evicted.'

‘Munro will be given seed to compensate for any loss he might have suffered.'

‘What about livestock?'

‘Don't push me too hard, Minister. I'll arrange for Munro to be given two young pigs. If he wants a cow, he'll need to negotiate with one of his new neighbours. But I'll have no goats on the land, and he'll be charged rent, same as anyone else.'

‘Not for a twelvemonth, until he's back on his feet.'

John Garrett held his breath for so long it seemed he must explode. ‘Lachlan Munro is due nothing from me. I've been generous enough.
Over
-generous. Now I'll give
you
something, Minister. Food for thought. Lord Kilmalie's an old man. He'll not last for ever. Most probably his heir will think as I do, that the Highlander has no place on a modern estate. His time passed with Culloden. When he's finally gone from these parts there'll be no need for a preacher here, either. Just keep it in mind, Minister Jamieson. I certainly will.'

 

Wyatt left the factor's house well satisfied with the results of his visit. He had achieved far more than he had expected. Lachlan Munro now had a cottage, and his family had an opportunity to put their past unhappiness behind them.

Wyatt decided he would go and tell the ex-soldier of his change of fortune right away, but he did not return the way he had come. It was still early, and the clouds building over the sea had not moved any closer. It was an opportunity for Wyatt to explore another corner of his extensive parish.

At nearby Corpach was the entrance to the Caledonian Canal. It was a wonderful feat of imaginative engineering. Utilising a number of deep-water lochs, it cut Scotland in two and linked the Atlantic Ocean with the North Sea. Wyatt intended to follow this canal north-eastwards for a few miles before turning off westwards and making his way to Eskaig over the mountains.

Because of the direction Wyatt had taken, Evangeline looked in vain for him along the road to Eskaig when she ran from the house fully dressed, her newly brushed hair freed from the curling-rags. Thoroughly bad-tempered, the factor's daughter returned to the house to take her father to task for shouting at her in the hearing of Eskaig's new young minister. In the present mood of both father and daughter the confrontation boded ill for the peace of the Garrett household.

On the slopes above Corpach, Wyatt paused in his climb to watch a small naval vessel being raised through a series of eight locks to join the canal. Then he followed the slow progress of the ship along the canal itself before turning off.

Heading deep into the mountains for about two miles, Wyatt followed the course of a small stream that had its source somewhere in the mountains overlooking Loch Eil. It was well wooded hereabouts, and he emerged from a stretch of woodland to discover the sun had disappeared behind a layer of thin fast-moving cloud. A squall was approaching.

Wyatt toyed with the idea of turning about and returning the way he had come. He was not dressed for bad weather. His coat would not keep out rain, and his hat would take flight at the first hint of wind. He would find houses where he might shelter more easily along the canal-bank than here.

Instead Wyatt muttered a brief prayer and rammed his hat more tightly upon his head. Turning up his coat collar, he set off against the slope of the land.

For almost an hour it seemed Wyatt's prayer had been heard. Apart from a short sharp shower, the rain held off. Then, as he reached an open stretch of mountainside, the sky to the west became as black as his minister's cloak, while the wind moaned a warning that no man familiar with the Highlands would ignore.

Looking about him anxiously for some form of shelter, Wyatt saw what he took to be a small clump of bushes, about half a mile distant. It was not much, but it would be better than nothing.

Not until Wyatt drew closer did he realise it was in fact a small depression in the hillside. What he had seen was the top of stunted trees. In their midst was a long low sod-and-stone cot, its thatched roof held down with weighty stones strung together like a giant necklace.

Wyatt reached the door of the building in the same moment as the storm. There were few formalities among Highland folk. To knock on a door in time of need would have been incomprehensible to the occupants. Wyatt stumbled in through the doorway as wind and rain slammed against the low-lying cot with the noise of a cannonade.

It was dim inside, and smoke hung heavily in the air. Such light as filtered through from outside entered through two small four-pane windows, weakly supplemented by light from a peat fire burning between stone slabs in the centre of the room. An upturned bucket set in the thatch at an angle against the prevailing wind served as a chimney, but the smoke was reluctant to leave, drifting about soot-blackened beams. The living-room was divided from the remainder of the cot by a screen of rough-hewn boards, but there would be little privacy for the occupants of such a house.

A number of men sat about the fire, some on wooden stools, others on the hard earth. All were men Wyatt had last seen on the day he landed from the boat at Eskaig. Three women were in the room, too. One was grey-haired with a dark weatherbeaten skin, the others were younger. One was the dark-haired girl Wyatt had last seen casting an angry look in his direction as the militiamen drove her from the loch-edge.

The only man to stand up was the heavily bearded Eneas Ross. ‘You're a long way from home, Preacher. Are you lost, maybe?'

‘No.' As Wyatt spoke a fierce gust of wind hurled itself against the thatch, and the blackened beams squealed in protest. ‘I had business in Corpach. I thought I'd return across the mountains. I'm glad I found your cot before the storm broke.'

As Wyatt spoke a dribble of water, peat-black from the beams, dripped down upon his head. He was reminded of other crofter cots, among the hills of the island where he had lived as a boy. The people here were not very different.

‘It will be worse along the ridge than down here. Either place, it's better to be listening to it from beneath a good solid roof. Will you seat yourself?'

As Wyatt took the recently vacated stool, Eneas Ross asked: ‘Was your business in Corpach with the factor?'

‘It was.'

One of the two women standing at the rear of the smoke-filled room snorted derisively. Wyatt believed it to be the dark-haired girl.

As Wyatt looked at each of the men seated about the fire, Eneas Ross said: ‘These are my sons – eight of them. A chief would have been proud to have such clansmen on his land in the old days. Those times are past, Preacher. Now it seems we're taking up land the factor would rather see rented out as a sheep-walk.'

His statement brought nods and grunts of agreement from the young men about the fire, but Eneas Ross was speaking again.

‘The wind will have put a chill in your bones. Mairi, bring out the “water of life” for the preacher. Mairi is my daughter,' Eneas Ross added as the dark-haired girl moved to a gloomy corner of the room. ‘She's the only lass in fourteen births. Four sons survived for only a few days. Another was drowned in the loch as a lad. The other lass is Tibbie.' He pointed through the smoke. Forced back down the ‘chimney' by the wind, it was now thicker than ever. ‘She's a Cameron from above Loch Leven, and married to my oldest boy, Ian.'