Jan 10

Jan 10 Fiona Of The Glen

Fiona Of The Glen - book excerpt

Chapter 1

Glen nan Gall, Scottish Highlands, Summer, 1823.

I was sitting on the wall when the soldiers marched into the glen. I was not sure why they came but immediately knew that they would be trouble.

“Father,” I called out, “the redcoats are coming.”

Father joined me, leaning against the unmortared stone as he puffed on his pipe and watched the long column of scarlet thread along the track.

“They’ll be heading to the old castle,” he said.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“There is nowhere else for them to go on this road,” Father said, breathing out smoke that was foul enough to keep the midges at bay.

“They could go over the pass,” I said, trying to prove my local knowledge.

“It’s late afternoon,” Father said and glanced upward. “And there is rain coming. The pass is fifteen miles long. They will halt at the old castle.”

The soldiers were making good time along the track with two tall officers in the lead and hectoring sergeants on either flank. I could see the last of the sun gleaming on the gold braid on the officers’ uniforms and the great white stripes on the sergeants’ arms.

“You stay here,” Father instructed. “Count them as they pass and find out what regiment they are.”

“How do I do that?” I asked.

“Ask them,” Father spoke over his shoulder as he strode away. “Remember that they’ll be English speakers. They won’t have the Gaelic.”

“I have the English,” I said.

“Then use that tongue. ” Father’s words came to me from a long distance away.

When I looked for him, he had vanished. Father could do that. One minute he was tall and broad and as bold as Fingal, the next he had disappeared among the heather.

I counted forty soldiers, some quite middle-aged men but most very young, mere boys who looked uncomfortable in their ill-fitting scarlet that matched the colour of their faces. Mud spattered their boots and black trousers while the sergeants barely took a breath between insults and swearwords. I decided that I did not like these sergeants very much at all.

“Halloa!” I called out, shifting my stance, so I perched on the soldiers’ side of the wall and swinging my legs from side to side. It was quite pleasant sitting on the warm stone with my bare feet cool. “Where are you going?”

The taller of the two officers glanced at me and looked away without a word. His companion was younger, with less gold on his tunic and a more open face.

He grinned at me. “We’re going to Dunbeiste”.

I had to struggle to understand his pronunciation of our castle. “Why go to Dunbeiste?” I asked artlessly. “There is nothing there.”

“Not yet!” The younger officer stepped aside as his colleagues marched past with their shakos tall on their heads and their muskets held upright, barrels dark in the sunlight. “We are going to garrison it,” he told me. He was a very open man, with sandy hair and freckles that merged when he smiled. I would have rather liked him had he not been a soldier.

“Why on earth would you do that?” I asked, widening my eyes in the manner that always worked with the boys in the glen. It was just as effective with this young officer; I was glad to see.

“Oh, we’re here to stop the smugglers,” my gallant lad said, as open as you please.

I looked around as if I had no idea what he meant. “Smugglers?” I said. “You mean all those French luggers carrying brandy and silks?” I shook my head, allowing my hair to shiver around my face. “We’re miles from the sea here, Captain.”

“I’m only an Ensign, actually,” my officer said. “Ensign Andrew Hepburn, Ma’am, at your service.” He gave the most refined of little bows and rose again with his shako lopsided on his head and a grin on his face.

“I am Fiona Gunn,” I said.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Gunn,” Ensign Hepburn said. “We’re stopping the whisky smuggling,” he told me and lowered his voice. “I believe this entire area is rife with whisky smugglers.”

“Oh,” I whispered and looked around as if expecting to see the infernal rogues leaping from every shrub of heather. “Are you sure you have come to the right glen?”

“I do hope so,” Ensign Hepburn said, with every appearance of alarm on his face. “This is Glen nan Gall isn’t it?”

“That’s correct. Glen nan Gall, the Glen of Strangers.” I nodded.

“What a strange name,” Ensign Hepburn said. “Why is it called that?”

“It’s an old name,” I told him. “This glen is where all the broken men and the unwanted came, from the ancient Picts to the Jacobites. Why,” I said, “Have you never heard the legend of Naked Iain? He was the sole survivor of the Battle of Cromdale, and he staggered into the glen without a stitch on and became part of us.”

“I do not know that,” Ensign Hepburn said.

“He was the reason the glen did not rise for the Jacobites,” I told him. “We did not fight for King George either. We are our own people and not inclined to follow any king or chief.”

Let him make what he wishes from that, I thought.

“Mr. Hepburn!” The bellow came from the taller officer. “Stop dawdling!”

“I think your colonel wants you,” I said. “Maybe you had better run along.”

“Oh, he’s not a colonel,” Hepburn said, adjusting his shako, which seemed set to fall entirely off his head.

“That’s Captain Barrow.”

“Oh,” I said. “Of the Sutherland Fencibles, I believe?”

“Indeed not,” Ensign Hepburn said. “Whatever gave you that idea? We are the South Edinburgh Militia.”

“That’s what I meant,” I said, smiling as my bold ensign gave another bow and then ran off after the column.

I watched his legs twinkle in the tight white breeches that looked painfully uncomfortable and waited for Father to reappear.

“Well?” Father said as he emerged from the heather.

“Forty men of the South Edinburgh Militia,” I reported at once. “Captain Barrow leads them, Ensign Hepburn is second in command, and they are here to suppress the whisky smuggling. The men are a mixture of recruits and old hands, while the sergeants are martinets. They will base themselves in Dunbeiste.”

Father patted my arm. “Well done, Fiona. We don’t need spies when you’re around. We’ll have to make their life a mite uncomfortable.” His grin was as evil as I had ever seen. “So that was Captain Barrow of the South Edinburgh Militia, eh? We’ll see how long the good captain and his tin soldiers last when winter bites the glen.”

“Father,” I said. “Be careful.”

“Oh, I will.” He rubbed a peat-stained hand across his jaw.

“We’re taking a consignment down to Perth at the end of the week. We’ll see how good our Captain Barrow is then.”

I slipped off the wall and brushed the moss from the back of my skirt.

“And where are you going?” Father asked.

“I’m going to watch the soldiers,” I said. “Mother does not need me just now, and I want to see what they’re doing.” I smoothed my hand down my gown and said nothing about my freckle-faced young officer. I hoped that Father did not guess.

“You’re playing with fire there,” he said, knowing at once what I was up to, the cunning old fox. “Best avoid the sojer-lads. There are decent men enough in the glen without having to go further afield.”

“Yes, Father.” I pretended meekness even as I thought of his freckles and the tight breeches. “I am only going to look.”

Father sighed; he knew the hot blood of the Gunns. After all, he had been married to my mother for upwards of twenty-one years and sired a brood of children.

“Don’t do anything stupid now, Fiona.”

He knew me well enough not to say more. Canute had more chance of controlling the tide than any man had of preventing a Gunn woman from doing something on which she had set her mind.

“I won’t.”

Dunbeiste was only a couple of miles up the glen, a gaunt grey shell of a place with a grim history. Lifting my skirt above the rough grass in the centre of the track, I followed the Militia, listening to the regular thump of their boots on the ground and wondering what they thought about our glen. They must have felt very far from home, these men from South Edinburgh, away down in the Low Country.

They were arriving at the castle when I caught up with them, so I found a perch on Creag Thairbh— the Bulls Rock— tucked my skirt underneath me, and settled down to watch.

Captain Barrow stood apart from the others, giving crisp orders that my Ensign Hepburn hurried to obey. I noted that the sergeants’ job seemed to consist of shouting at, pushing, and occasionally striking the poor soldier-men, for whom I almost felt sorry.

After an hour, a wagon lurched along the track, nearly spilling its load as its wheels sunk into the mud. It came to a halt outside the walls of the castle.

In an instant, there was increased pandemonium as Captain Barrow screamed orders that sent the poor little militiamen running to the wagon to unload what turned out to be tents and blankets, food of some kind, and other necessities. It was fascinating to see the soldier boys at work, setting up three neat lines of tents outside the stone walls and even raising a flag pole.

Every so often, a face turned toward me as one soldier or another wondered who I was and why I was there, but I did not respond or wave. I had my reasons for observing and was quite happy to watch.

Late summer evenings were long in our glen, and it was late before there was insufficient light for the men to work.

I saw the clouds of midges rise from the heather in the gloaming and smiled at the antics of the lowlanders. Perhaps they believed that flapping their hands would chase away the swarms. Maybe they believed that the presence of two score redcoats could end distilling in the glen. Perhaps they believed that the moon was made of sour milk and dragons ate grass.

The flash from the slopes of Am Bodach attracted my attention then, two high hills dominate the head, Am Bodach, the Old Man, and An Cailleach, the Old Woman. When the path leaves Dunbeiste, it winds up Bealach nan Bo, the Pass of the Cattle, which crept between these twin mountains and south to Perthshire. I saw the brief light from the corner of my eye and did not move. Such a flash could only come from the sun reflecting on something, water, metal, or glass, and I knew that section of the hill had no water. Metal or glass indicated a human presence—somebody was up there. The glen was certainly busy today, what with this stranger up Am Bodach and the soldiers scurrying about Dunbeiste.

Whatever I thought about soldiers then, there was no mistaking the beauty of the trumpet call that sent them to bed. Last Post must be one of the most soul-stirring sounds in creation and to hear it played against a Highland sunset is something that everybody should experience at least once in their life. Indeed, it may have been the melancholic beauty of that sound, combined with the lowering of the colourful Union flag, that enticed me to linger longer than I had intended.

I was still sitting on Creag Thairbh when Ensign Hepburn left the pretty little camp and walked up the hillside. He was not aware of my presence until I spoke.

“Good evening, Ensign Hepburn.”

The poor boy nearly leapt a yard into the air.

“Oh, my goodness. Miss Gunn. I did not see you there.”