Summer of Love (7 page)

    
Andrew pushed out a deprecating laugh. "That comfort is rather scarce at
Finlarig, Mr. MacGregor. That place feels more like a damp prison."

    
"But Lord Glenorchy will surely order you to join his ranks."

    
"I doubt that. I’m more useful to him here, with Mr. Graham in such bad
health."

    
The older man frowned, nodding slowly several times. "Now that I look
at it, I’d say you are right… Master Andrew, you’re a very insightful lad, you
are. But I must admit, you puzzle me. For a young man, you take a rather
cautious stand. I would have expected you to take sides firmly, wanting to be
part of the fight on one side or the other, participate in the glory of battle. I
know that all the young men here are eager. Even my two sons," he pointed
at the two lads in front of them, "would join if I let them. Mind you, I’m not
implying that you’re a coward. You don’t come across as one. But you must
lean one way or the other. Tell me!"

    
"Many a wise man has been called a coward," Andrew retorted with a
chuckle, "and I don’t claim to be wise. But it’s the truth. I’m not committed
and I’m not willing to fight somebody else’s dirty war. I don’t feel any
allegiance to the Hanover kings, nor do I trust the Stuarts. Didn’t they readily
abandon Scotland for the English crown at the first opportunity? They might
just simply see this as a way to get it back. In my opinion, they’re using
Scottish patriotism for their own selfish designs… But look at it from a
different angle, Mr. MacGregor. I’m, in fact, simply taking a leaf from your
illustrious ancestor, Rob Roy. Isn’t it true that at that indecisive battle of
Sherriffmuir he said, ‘If they cannot do it without me, they cannot do it with
me!’ and wisely kept his men on the sideline. You may want to cogitate on
this yourself." Although it didn’t quite fit his own stance, he hoped that it
would sway his host.

    
"Right you are, right you are," the latter laughed, slapping his bare thighs.
His outburst startled the dozing grandmother MacGregor, and she looked
confused at her son. "How is it that you know such intimate details about the
history of the MacGregors? I thought you were a Campbell… Come, lad, you
have hardly touched your cup. Drink some more of that excellent claret as
long there is some left!" He refilled both cups and took a few sips. "You are
quite a lad, I must say. Too bad you are a Campbell! I wouldn’t mind having
you for a son-in-law."

    
He winked at his daughter. Andrew and Helen both grew crimson. Their
eyes met fleetingly, and he noticed his own discomfiture matched by hers.

    
Mary MacGregor now got up. "Lass, come with me. I need your help."

    
With obvious reluctance Helen folded up her mending. Andrew’s gaze
followed her until she disappeared through the door.

 * * *

"I want you to cut more fir candles from the branches father fetched
yesterday," ordered Mary MacGregor.

 
    
"You said I had to help you. That isn’t helping you and doesn’t have to be
done right now… You just wanted me out of the cottage," Helen complained
accusingly. "Why? It was interesting to hear what master Andrew had to
say."

    
"That’s just it. You were paying more attention to him than to your
mending. Didn’t I tell you not to encourage a man from the gentry? Now you
even got your father view him as a potential son-in-law," her mother said
sternly.

    
"I did nothing of the sort, nothing at all. You’re unfair, and you know it.
But even if I had, what would be so bad about marrying a nice man like
master Andrew? You said yourself that a factor makes good money." As she
said that the blurred figure of a woman disappearing behind the old Killin
church where Andrew and his friends had gone rose fleetingly in her mind
and she felt again a rush of shame and embarrassment.

    
"So, he is a nice man now!" her mother scoffed. "You know damn well
why it wouldn’t work. No MacGregor will ever be wed to a Campbell!"

    
Helen’s contrary nature got the upper hand. "I see, blood runs thicker than
water." She wanted to add ‘as father says when he runs out of arguments’,
but she swallowed it.

    
"You watch your tongue, lass. You aren’t too old for a hiding."

    
"Mother, this is so silly. I’ve no intention of getting married, if I ever will.
All I wanted is to hear their interesting talk… Please, mother, let me go back
inside. I’ll cut the fir candles later on."

    
"You cut them right now and stop sulking!"

    
Fighting her anger, Helen fetched the tool for cutting the fast burning
wood splinters the Highlanders used as substitute for wax candles. They
needed a large supply to last them through the long winter evenings.

 * * *

She did not see Andrew again all winter. With the ground covered in snow
and all provisions for the winter in storage, there was no need to go to Killin.

    
At first, her mind wandered from time to time back to their last two
encounters. She saw his light green eyes that could exude such a compelling
intensity. But as the winter deepened, these flashbacks happened less and
less often and then stopped altogether. She hardly gave it a thought when, on
her first visit to Killin in the spring of 1745, she caught a glimpse of him,
sitting alone behind his little factor’s booth, busily engaged in a transaction
with a tacksman.

    
With all the talk of rebellion and the half dozen men of fighting age in
their small group making ready to join as soon as word arrived from
Glengyle, the seat of clan MacGregors, a cloud of uncertainty hung over the
little glen on the slopes of Creag Gharbh. The move into the summer
shielings was seriously disrupted.

    
In August when the call to arms finally came after Prince Charles left
France and secretly landed at Borradale on the Western shores of the
Highlands, Helen, her younger sister, Betty, and her two teenage brothers,
Robin and Alasdair, together with other young people from the clachan, were
still up in the shielings. They only learned about the departure of their father
when Mary came up to tell them the following day. Robin and Alasdair made
no bones about their disappointment for having been left behind. Only their
mother’s stern warning that their father had promised her solemnly to send
them straight back, if they tried to follow, kept them from going after their
clansmen.

    
There was no Crieff rover market, and besides no men to drive the cattle
there. This meant no money to buy additional grains for winter and too many
cattle for the limited winter feed. They would have to slaughter some of their
animals.

    
The scant reports of the early success of Prince Charles’ motley and ill-equipped army, sweeping rapidly down into the Lowlands and taking
Edinburgh in a surprise move, reached their clachan by late September and
gave rise to celebration and hopes of a quick ending and without much
bloodshed. They expected their men to be home safely by Christmas. It was
January before news of the reversal of Charles’ fortunes finally came in. By
then, heavy snow had cut them off almost completely from all contact with
the world.

    
As more news trickled in about the continued withdrawal of Prince
Charles’ troops back into the Highlands, the women and old people began to
worry about what the future had in store for them. Would their men return
safe and whole? For the first time in almost a year, Helen was reminded of
Andrew’s plea to her father to carefully weigh his decision. But she couldn’t
conceive that her father would have stood aside and waited. It would have
been completely contrary to his impulsive character and the MacGregor
ethos.

3

1745 was not a happy year for Andrew. Dougan Graham became bedridden
at the onset of the winter in 1744. Suddenly the whole burden of factor fell
on the young man’s shoulders. Dougan’s health improved a bit in late spring,
but not enough to allow him to resume his duties. He supervised Andrew as
best as he could from his bedside. The young man was constantly on the
move, setting up his factor’s stall all over the realm of Breadalbane. When
his travels brought him back to the castle for Sunday, he was most often too
tired even to read.

    
The younger members of the gentry could talk of nothing else but the
impending rebellion, almost wishing it to happen so that they could join in
real battle on the side of the English. At first, Andrew took part, questioning
the motives of both sides. But his was a lonely voice, at least in the mess
hall. It only raised hostility and derision, particularly on the part of the
McNabb brothers. So he kept quiet. In fact, as spring changed into summer,
more often than not he ate dinner alone. Occasionally, he joined Dougan
Graham for a meal.

    
As Andrew had predicted, when the Earl of Breadalbane sent out the first
call in August for his vassals to mobilize their men, he asked Andrew to
remain in his position as the de facto factor.

    
"A rather unfortunate decision," sneered John. "You won’t be able to
prove that you’re a real man."

    
Although Andrew kept looking out for Helen whenever he was in Killin,
he never saw any of the MacGregors all that year. Their rent payments fell
in arrears again. He wondered how she was, wondered whether by now she
fancied a young man from the MacGregor clan. But most nights, before he
fell asleep, he conjured up her picture. They hadn’t faded or become blurred
with the passing of time and were still as vivid and clear as on the first night.
Sometimes, her face appeared in his dreams in a veil of mist, and more than
once he woke with a sense of disquiet.

    
And then came the news of Prince Charles’ defeat at Derby, his rapid
withdrawal North, and reports of widespread clansmen desertions from his
camp, gleefully received at the castle. There were also rumors that in the
Western Highlands and on the Island of Mull English troops and the
Campbells of Argyle had begun plundering and burning the clachans left
defenseless by the men who had joined the rebellion. After Prince Charles
abandoned the futile siege of Stirling Castle in the face of the English army
closing in on the Highlands, the Earl of Breadalbane sent his cavalry to join
Cumberland, the McNabb brothers and James Campbell among them.
Andrew felt a sense of relief to see them go. When the first white and pink
crocuses raised their delicate blooms in the early spring of 1746, only a small
number of soldiers were left for the defense of Finlarig Castle. It was now
but a matter of days before the back of the rebellion would be brutally broken
in the moors of Culloden.

    
A few days after that battle, the gates of the castle were firmly locked and
the garrison of twelve men under the leadership of the aging Lord Glenorchy
took up battle stations, while the MacGregors marched by with their pipes
playing, and the pine-sprig badge of Clan Gregor on their bonnets. The Earl
did not even think of stopping them, glad that they seemed content to
continue to their own glens. Little did they know that the royal troops and the
forces from Argyle had already set the torch to many of their homes.

    
From a window high up in the tower Andrew watched them march by in
good order. They were too far away to recognize individual faces. He
wondered if Helen’s father was among them.

    
In the middle of May, a platoon of English infantrymen took up quarters
at the castle. They were part of a force sent in from the garrison at Perth to
disarm and punish the MacGregors, MacLarens, and other clan branches in
Perth and Breadalbane who had joined the rebellion. The larger portion
pushed into Glengyle, Craigroyston, and the Braes of Balquhidder, frustrated
by the MacGregors simply fading farther into the hills before them. They
plundered and burned every house and cottage and drove off any four-legged
animal they could lay hands on.

    
Lord Glenorchy ordered Andrew to submit within the day a list of all
clachans between Kenmore and Crianlarich where any menfolk had joined
up with Prince Charles. For some reason, Andrew put Dougal MacGregor’s
at the bottom of the list. The day after, he was seconded to Lieutenant
Gordon, the officer in charge of the platoon —his assignment to guide the
troops in their punitive actions. Andrew had little notion of what that meant.
He expected them to search for weapons and arrest the men who had served
under Charles.