Writing Group Exercise

My writing group . . . actually, the writing group I belong to . . . has begun meeting again.  To get the juices flowing again we’ve decided to tackle some writing exercises.  So, the first exercise was the following: 

Write in first person. Make your character sympathetic, rounded and complex even though you don’t particularly like them or what they believe in.  Consider picking a subject that they (the character) feels strong about but that you may feel opposite about.  (I believe these are from a book someone in the writing group has, but I don’t know with certainty.) 

I found this really difficult, actually.  It’s not easy to make someone you dislike sympathetic.  It’s even tougher to know who to write about.  Nevertheless, here’s my submission (it’s untitled and really more of a portrait than a story):

They took the Bentley earlier this week.  It was dreadfully distressing.  They photographed the interior, the exterior, put a bar code on the windshield and scanned it.  Finally, an appalling excuse for a man put it on a truck and drove it away.  Even though it was William’s car, I was the one who wept.  I loved that car.  It was truly the carriage from which to see the world.

They left us one vehicle . . . the Audi.  If they had to take any, that would have been the one they should have taken.  Mind you, it took two of those flat-bed vehicle trailers for all the cars.  And it infuriates me so to think of how little each will bring at auction. 

That was merely the beginning of the nightmare, though.  They then entered the house and commenced tagging and inventorying the entirety of its contents.  From the formal sitting room to the lavatory attached to the mud room.  When I attempted to ascertain what they were doing, I was rather tersely told that they were making a record of the household assets for appraisal and possible sale.

I do not understand how people, an agency, can have the right to come into a person’s private home, their private property, and take their possessions away.  It’s a sanctioned form of private property theft.  Sanctioned by our own legal system . . . by our own government.  It cannot be ethical.  It cannot be moral.  In the eyes of God, the Almighty, it must be a sin.

I am uncertain whether I had ever confessed that I came of age on a relatively poor homestead.  My parents were farmers.  And not particularly successful farmers at that.  They had inherited the farm from my grandfather.  He was the second generation from England.  He was a particularly noteworthy solicitor in Chicago, but before I had been born, he left the practice, bought a farm in central Illinois and attempted to live off the land.  To this day, I do not know why he sacrificed a lucrative occupation for a life of common labor.  My parents often said he had gotten tired of the banality and dishonesty of the profession.  I believe there must have been more to his decision. 

My father, the only child, had just married mother after both received their degrees from University when Grandfather died.  Father and mother moved to the farm to stay with Grandmother and father attempted to farm as his father had done.  When Grandmother passed away, my parents we so deeply in debt to the failing farm that they could not leave. 

They did not have a happy life.  Neither had planned on being mere farmers.  Father had studied to be a chemist.  Mother had studied biology to be a physician.  The life of toil and no reward was not in their plans.  I believe Mother came to blame Father for their condition, but never expressed it in my presence.  I surmised it was so, though.

It was from Mother I learned that value was based on quality.  The good things in life are particularly well made with high quality materials and meticulous craftsmanship.  My antique English furniture was made with that attention to detail.  The good people in life have noteworthy educations and always attempt to a better status for themselves and their families.  These were the values my Mother instilled in me as a young girl.  They are the values I hold today and the values that I believe all should hold and aspire to. 

My parents inherited the quality furniture and jewelry, china and silver, accessories and artwork from my grandparents.  Unfortunately, they were forced to liquidate much of it to assist in settling the debts from the farm.  I recall my mother crying for days during and after the day of the auction.  Little remained after the buzzards had picked at the carrion of my parent’s earlier life except the fine English bone china, a matching pair of original Tiffany lamps, and an unblemished Limoges porcelain vase from the 1850s.   Once a week my mother and I would meticulously clean and polish each of these, even if they had not been used. 

Then my father left.  I did not know until after William and I had been married for some time that Father had committed suicide.  When I recollect, there was no change in my Mother’s demeanor after Father departed. 

Of my own volition and as a result of all I had learned to that point, I determined that quality in human relationships was deceptive and fleeting.  That the true value in life was to be found in those things that could not change their value of their own free will.

So, when they opened the china cabinet, I felt that I must intervene. 

“No!  The china belongs to my mother.  You cannot take that.”

“Ma’am?”

“It has been in my family for more than 150 years.  You must not take that.”

“Ma’am, are you keeping it for your mother?”

“My mother departed this world over 15 years ago.”

“Then I can only assume it’s yours.  And if it’s yours, I’m sorry, but I must inventory it.”

“The china is sacred.  You cannot . . .”

“Ma’am, let me explain it to you as simply as I can.  Your husband committed a crime.  Because you and your husband are married, in the eyes of the court all property is joint custody and can be used for restitution of a crime.  The court has decreed that all joint property be inventoried and considered eligible for restitution of the crime that your husband committed.  Is that clear?  I have no choice in the matter.  I’m following the direction of the court.”

I saw William’s face in the china cabinet glass, but I did not turn to confront him.  I could only begin to weep.

You see, I did not weep for my husband.  I did not weep at the trial when the verdict was announced.  I was certainly heart-broken, but I did not weep.  What I had lost was a means to an end, not the end itself.  When the Bentley was taken away and the china, Tiffany lamps and Limoges was inventoried, I was losing an end.  And for that I wept.

They left me my clothes.  And suitcases.  Apparently, they did not feel that the clothes could bring in enough revenue to make it worthy of their effort.  Little did they know.  So, I took my clothes, went to the Hilton and checked in.  I checked in without William.  I trust you are not surprised. 

And now I beg to ask a favor.  I have an Oscar de la Renta dress that still fits and is quite stunning.  And there’s a charity ball in the near future that is certain to attract the elite in the city.  I believe you know the one.  It is held on the top floor of the Adam’s Mark hotel.  If I recall, you and Mark are attending.  Could I impose on you to secure an invitation for me?  You know I will be trustworthy in repaying. 

It is time to search for a new means to an end.

 

Spanish Portrait

This is something I started shortly after the beginning of the year.  I’d been to Rota, Spain and saw a gentleman in a bar that made me start thinking of a story to go with the image I was seeing.  This is the result.

He walked in, seemingly unnoticed, and proceeded directly to the end of the bar where he assumed a station he’d obviously assumed before.  He turned ninety degrees, putting his right elbow on the bar, lifting his foot onto a bar stool stretcher in front of him and through watery eyes slowly surveyed the near empty bar.  His scan was deliberate though there was what appeared to be a hint of fear behind the grey eyes that glistened around the edges from the cold and stiff wind off the ocean he’d walked through moments ago.  It was as though he was afraid he would be seen and yet not seen.

Without cuing, the young woman behind the bar produced a glass of vino tinto and placed it on the bar next to his arm.  He turned and mouthed “Gracias,” but no sound came out.  She apparently expected no thanks and collected no coin as she left for the other end of the bar to continue her chattering with her girlfriend.  He squared himself back to the bar, took the glass stem between his thumb and index finger and raised it to his lips.  Tipping his head back a bit, he took the tiniest sip.  Before setting the glass back on the bar, he kept this head back while savoring the drop in his mouth.  It was theater.  A performance of epicurean adventure for anyone who cared to see . . . and no one did.

When he set his glass on the bar, he hunched his shoulders up and with his right hand began turning down the collar on the grey wool jacket.  It had once been of the best material money could buy.  Now it was discolored around the button holes, shiny at the elbows and the wool at the edges of the pocket openings was showing signs of fraying.  When it was new, it fit him as though it had been tailored especially for him, and perhaps it was.  Now, though, it was obvious that buttoning the jacket would stress the old seams.  Beneath it he wore a black wool waistcoat buttoned top to bottom.  It was of only slightly better condition than the jacket.  The waistcoat covered a white dress shirt that was now a dingy ivory color from age.  He wore the top buttoned.  The narrow collar exposed a great deal of his neck making it appear long and regal.  He wore black slacks above white socks and black loafers that were polished on the toe, but scuffed grey at the back.

From the doorway, a younger gentleman waves to him and says, “Adiós, Míguez. Nos vemos mañana.”  Míguez lifts his glass and the departing gentleman shakes his head as he leaves.  

When he was in his middle years, Míguez must have struck a dashing figure.  He was a little taller than most in this region of Spain, slender by not thin.  His posture, now bent with years and relief, was obviously proud and boastful as he’d walk to the Playa de la Sol with his wife on his arm.  When they’d meet people with a “Buenos Noches,” Míguez was always the first noticed of the pair.  In this marriage, he was the more prominent than she as they walked the calle in the early evening headed to the church to light a candle and visit the Stations of the Cross.  When they’d leave after crossing themselves, his visage in his wool jacket and waistcoat, crisp white shirt and thin black tie perfectly knotted, pressed black pants and freshly polished shoes gave him the appearance of an important businessman or a government official.  His perfect posture and head held high showed a man proud of who he was and confident that who he was and what he had should be the envy of all.

Yet, as self-confident as Míguez was and as important as it was for him to be well dressed and presentable, he was devoted to his dear Imelda and his devotion only increased over the years of their marriage.  After their evening visit to the church, they would always stop in next door at the El Castillo bar.  He and Imelda would each have a vino tinto.  During the warm season, they would sit outdoors at a café table with the young lovers and tourists.  He would eschew the company of the men talking politics or business or watching futbol on the small black and white television above and behind the bar in favor of talking with his wife or silently watching strangers or watching the pigeons around the fountain on the square in front of the church.  During the cold season, when wind and rain swept in from the Atlantic Ocean, they would sit at a small table against the back wall.

Míguez would always have a second vino while she would still be sipping on her first.  Every third evening, he would purchase a pair of tapas plates and bring them to their table.  The two would share the seafood delicacies.  The next night, they would go to one of their favorite restaurants. 

Every night they would stroll the calles, seeing friends and neighbors, helping the wine and food to dissipate, and window shopping.  They would stop next to orange trees planted on the walkways and talk with friends.  In the fall, the oranges would fill the air with a sweetness more fragrant than flowers.  In the winter, because the fruit was so plentiful, oranges still hung on the trees, slowly decaying ornaments.  The ladies would talk and the men would stand in silence.  Míguez would remain attentive to the ladies’ conversation while the other husband might wander away to look in shop windows or towards a tapas bar always remaining in sight of the friends.

When they’d window shop, Imelda might stop and silently admire an item in a window.  Míguez would notice and say, “Do you like it, my Dear?  Would you like to have it?  I can get it for you.”

More often than not, Imelda would say, “No, no.  It is frivolous.  You should not spend your money.”

But Míguez hid from everyone, including his wife, Imelda, a secret.  He had no savings.  No plan for retiring.  Early in their marriage, he asserted himself as the keeper of the new family’s budget.  And he was adept at it, always able to pay the rent and bills, put food on the table, and put a little aside for when the children came.  But they never came.  During the tenth year of their marriage, his wife slipped into depression from the despair of being barren.  The only time she would leave their home was to go to the church of Parroquia Nuestra Señora de la O where they would light a candle and ask forgiveness from the Virgin Mary.

He would try to entice her to stop and look in shop windows on their way to and from the church, but she’d refuse and would walk ahead determined to not be distracted from the darkness on her way home.  Míguez would plead with her to stop for a vino tinto at the El Castillo after services, sometimes turning toward the door in hopes that she would follow.  She didn’t and he’d have to walk briskly to catch her.  The same would happen when he’d suggest dinner at their favorite restaurant. 

All his efforts to lift her back into the world they once had met with failure.  His desperation mounted as each attempt was brushed away.  He tried to convince her that they didn’t need children to be happy together, but that seemed to cause the skies to darken even more. 

One evening, when he left Imelda at home and went to the El Castillo for a vino and sherry, Míguez walked back home, down the calle he and Imelda always walked, an in a shop window a shimmering, ivory-hued silk scarf caught his eye.  He looked at it for a moment or two and then, with purpose, entered the shop.  The label said it was pure silk, made in Thailand.  The surface was very slightly textured, but had the softest feel he had ever experienced.  He took the scarf to the woman running the shop.

“¿Cuánto es el pañuelo?”

“Siete mil quinientos pesetas,” answered the shopkeeper.  “¿Quieres que te lo envuelva?”

He didn’t pause long before nodding, “Sí, por favor.  Gracias.”

Míguez knew it was more than his budget would allow, but his desperation was now in control and pushing his rational side to the rear.  This was another, and so far as he knew perhaps the last, chance to help his wife from her depression.  The cost was immaterial.  It was a pittance to the potential gain.  The budget was forgotten. 

When he arrived home, he placed the package in Imelda’s lap as she lay on the bed and stepped back, waiting for her to react.  Imelda looked at the package and then at Míguez.  She then put the unwrapped package on the night table and turned her face away.

Míguez was heartbroken and even more frantic about her than before.  He now felt entirely helpless and felt she would die having never emerged from her depression.  He walked to the beach and in the darkness, hot tears streaked his cheeks.

When he returned home, though, Imelda had opened the package and the scarf now lay on her lap.  Her hand slowly moved across the surface of the silk as though reading the fabric and Míguez could imagine she felt the same incredible softness he felt when he bought it. 

“¿Te gusta?” he asked.

“Es demasiado.”

“No.  No es por tu amor.”

The next night, before they departed for services at the church, the last thing she did before stepping into the courtyard was to wrap the silk scarf around her neck and adjust it so it was clearly visible from beneath her coat.  Míguez smiled.

It took months, but Imelda emerged from her darkness and at her side the entire journey was Míguez.  Even though he knew he needed to save for their future, every time he saw the sadness darken her eyes from her failure to produce a child he would buy her a fine gift or hold her hand while they sipped vino tinto at the El Castillo or ate paella at their favorite restaurant and their favorite table overlooking the sea.  He would buy her fine clothes with embroidering and lace surprising her with most things.  He purchased new clothes for himself, a new shirt and shoes made of finest Spanish leather.  All the while, he was dipping into the savings he had accumulated for the children that would not be.  After several years, the savings was gone and Imelda was herself again.

Míguez now lived paycheck to paycheck still purchasing gifts for Imelda but not at the rate he had when she was in her darkness.  Imelda never suspected.  Míguez would occasionally go out alone and walk on the beach stopping to stare at the waves.  He would think, ‘I cannot become ill and lose my work.  I cannot die before Imelda.  What would she do?”  These fears haunted Míguez day and night, though no one knew.

When they entered the twilight of their years, Imelda began to experience stomach problems and when they became so painful she couldn’t rise from bed, Míguez took her to the hospital.  That’s where they found the cancer throughout her body. 

Míguez was devastated.  He held her hand as she slept on the hospital bed.  At times his head would drop to the sheets and he would weep.  When the initial shock of the diagnosis had passed, a thought would occasionally creep across Míguez’s mind.  It was relief.  Relief that Imelda would not be left behind after Míguez had passed.  That he, Míguez, would be left behind without the money and not Imelda. 

Míguez would have this thought and then immediately feel guilty for it.  It was a thought that felt strangely like he was happy Imelda was dying.  His guilt became consuming, and yet there could be no release.  He could not even bring himself to hint at the thought during confessional fearing that the priest would think him a monster.  No.  He kept the guilt buried from all.  And still the thought returned.

The hospital released Imelda to go home and die in the fall as the orange trees were bearing their fruit.  Neither Imelda nor Míguez noticed.  Imelda became increasingly weak and Míguez did not leave her side.  She would try to send him to the El Castillo so he could have a vino and a sherry and talk with some of their old friends, but Míguez refused.  When she insisted, Míguez would go, but did not mingle and came straight home when he’d taken his last sip of sherry. 

Imelda passed in the winter leaving Míguez alone and with his thoughts.  While the pain of longing dominated his mind, there was also the relief that never left.  And the guilt.

Now, five years on, he stands at the end of the bar, his vino tinto at hand, talking to no one.  His shoulders show burden, the hair beneath his cap bleached with the harshness of years, and the lines on his face spell sadness.  And in the old ice of his eyes is the guilt.  The guilt of someone who betrayed, of someone who was dishonest in his silence, the guilt that only love lost can bring.

I motion to the waitress who comes to my table.  I touch my glass of sherry, and point to Míguez.  She puts her hand on my arm and nods before going.

Spanish Portraits

A couple months ago, I was in the south of Spain and started thinking about writing portraits of things or people I saw.  The portraits weren’t intended to be stories with plots and such.  Rather, they were to be exercises in descriptions–painting vignettes with words.   This first portrait is of a town I passed on the A-4 south from Seville.  This is a relatively short portrait.  Others will be forthcoming.

It sat atop a cone shaped hill.  At the pinnacle, a massive church was entirely whitewashed and dominated the scene.  Spilling away down the hill, as though flaked off the walls of the church, was a maze of hundreds of whitewashed stucco houses.  They covered the hillside to the surrounding elevation where farm land took over.  It was the sort of vista you’d expect Don Quixote and Poncho to witness on their way to the next great battle with a windmill. 

A woman in her mid-60s dressed in a wool coat, long skirt and rubber soled shoes that accentuate her tendency to waddle, stepping out of the chapel holding her rosary.  As she enters the playa, the string on her rosary unravels and black beads spray across the cobbles and start seeking low ground.  The woman, in her rubber soled shoes starts chasing after the rolling beads.  The appearance is of someone chasing a piece of paper being blown by the wind.   The beads bounce and careen off cobbles and foundations constantly seeking lower ground while the woman shuffles and stoops, shuffles and stoops, occasionally catching one and shoving it into her skirt pocket for later assembly.  She finally breathlessly captures the last bead as it crosses the town threshold at the bottom of the hill.  She pauses, putting her hands on her knees and takes deep breaths.  She looks at the bead in her hand and then up the hill toward the steeple at the pinnacle and says “I should have become a protestant.” 

Mairi’s Battle Finished

Here is the completed third section of Mairi’s Battle.  It’s still a little rough and needs some editing, but the direction of the story is there.  I’ll likely do one pass at editing (with the help of a friend, Julie) and then set it aside.  I have other ideas I’ve been repressing waiting for this to get over.  If you’d like to see the story in it’s entirety, leave a comment and we’ll work out the details.

24 September 1882 

It had been raining for over two weeks.  Not quite constantly, but very nearly.  What was normally a thin line of silver tumbling down the brae was now a ragged and thick ribbon of white torrent.  A temporary river had formed from water spilling off the road.  It gathered strength on its way to the sea loch so that by the time it reached Mairi’s cottage it was too wide to leap across as it passed by the front door.  The cottage floor stones were constantly damp and the only way to adequately dry her clothes and the clothes of Niall and Ailean was to hang them near to the peat fire.  Mairi was certain the acrid aroma was now permanently embedded in their clothes.

Mairi had no time to wish and wait for better weather.  She still had the bairns to look after . . . to feed and keep healthy.  The coo needed to let out to graze, brought back to milk and the cream churned into butter.  The corn from the storage barrel needed to be ground and the early crops tended, then harvested and taken to the village to be sold so she could pay her rent.  The Laird’s factor would not care if it were raining or sunny when it came time to collect rent.  Besides, it rained enough that the dampness was more common than dryness.  For Mairi and all the crofters, the rain wasn’t an inconvenience or a hindrance.  It was, instead, a fact of life.  As inhaling is as much a part of breathing as exhaling, so rain was as much a part of island living as was sunny weather.

Ever since Peter and the others had been taken away, the crofters had pulled together to ensure those families left without husbands were not left to their own devices.  Mairi was no exception.  When Niall had taken ill with fever and wasn’t able to help with daily chores, nearby crofters showed up to do the work while Mairi nursed Niall back to health. 

A rather constant presence for a period was young Allen MacRae.  He first arrived when she was plowing a field.  Mairi noticed him when she had bent over at the waist to move a stone from the path of her plow.  As she struggled to move the stone while keeping the borrowed horse from walking off, she saw his feet to her side.  Mairi twisted her head slightly to look over her shoulder to see Allen staring at her, though not at her face.  Her initial though was to be perturbed at this wonton display of maleness, but quickly realized that there could be profit to be made from the situation.  She slowly stood from being bent at the waist and slightly turned so Allen could see her profile.  Still no letting on that she knew Allen was there, Mairi threw back her head and her arms as though stretching out a stiffness.  The action thrusted her chest forward increasing the curvature of her profile, and when she acted surprised that Allen was there and returned to a straight posture, she caught him now looking at the most obvious curves of her profile.

“Allen, is there something wrong, Lad?  Is there something ye need?”

Allen stammered as though suddenly woken from a daydream.  “Em . . . em, nay Miss.  Nothing.  I’ve . . . em . . . come to see if I can help ye.”

“Help me?  Well, that’s very Christian of ye, Lad.”  Pointing to the stone she’d been rolling, Mairi said, “If ye could put yer back into movin this stone . . .”  Mairi then smiled at Allen.  Soon the stone was entirely out of the field and Allen was behind the plow guiding the blade while Mairi guided the draft horse.

Allen would come nearly every day for the next month.  Then one day while she was handing him some sod to repair a leak in the cottage roof, he took her hand and wouldn’t let go until she forcefully withdrew from his grasp. 

“Allen, what are ye doin?”

Allen stared at Mairi with a look of surprise.

“Lad, if yer thinkin what it appears yer thinkin, I fear yer mistaken.  Did ye think I might be a wee bit lonely with me husband in jail?  Is that what yer thinkin?  Did ye think that because I’d no been to confession recently that I’m now full of sin?  Well, . . . if I made ye believe that there is any more here than a fail widow in need of a wee bit of help, then aye, I have sinned indeed, though tellin the priest and saying Hail Marys won’t change that.  If God is lookin at me now, then let this be my confession.  If he’s not, then I’m no certain why I’m confessing.  Do ye understand me, Lad?”

Allen did not reply, but was now looking away as though he was uncomfortable with the entire situation.

Mairi continued.  “And aye, I am lonely.  I’m lonely for me husband, not for a lad who awakes hard in the morn and thinks himself a man.  Peter is me husband.  The man I swore to God that I would stay with until I die.  And I intend to keep that promise.  Not for ye, Lad, yer a fine boy, Allen, but yer no Peter.  And it’s Peter I’m wantin.  So I think it’s time for ye to go home.”

After that Allen did not return unless it was with his father.

On this cool, rainy morning, Mairi watched as Niall and Ailean ate their porridge before all three went to harvest potatoes.  As she watched, someone rapped on the cottage door.  The the visitor said loudly, “Mairi, it’s Mackinnon.  Let me in, Lass.”

“Aye, come in, come in, Angus,” she said as she opened the door.

Angus ducked stepping through the door and stamped his feet causing a small rain shower where he stood.  He then removed his cap and slapped it against his woolen pants.  With his free hand, he ran his fingers through his hair matting its dampness to his scalp.

“It will be hard pushing a barrow full in this soft soil,” said Mackinnon.

“Aye, but the lads and I can manage.”

“Perhaps ye can.  Perhaps not.  That why the good Lord sent me to ye with me nag and cart.”  Angus opened the door and gestured toward a glistening, steaming old horse that gave all the appearance of being tired of life.  Behind it, fastened to a harness around the horse’s body, was a two-wheeled cart, black from being wet.

Mairi smiled and nodded to Angus.  “I dinna know if it was the Lord that sent ye, but ye and yer nag are a welcome sight on this day.  Can I get ye some porridge or tea?”

“Nay, nay.  Well . . . do ye have any uisghe?  I could put a wee bit in me tea to keep the chill away.”

“Och no,” said Mairi looking down.  “Not in this home, I dare say.”

Angus smiled and said, “Ah then, just a tea.”

Mairi wrapped her hands around her teapot and said, “Och, this has gone cold.  Let me make another, Angus.  It will take not long.”

“That’s fine, Mairi.”

Mairi took a cloth hanging near the peat fire, wrapped her hand with it, and then lifted the water kettle off the andiron  hook and refilled the teapot.  She added a small scoop of tea leaves, returned the lid and wrapped the pot with the cloth that she’d wrapped around her hand.

“There.  Should only be a moment, now,” she said to Angus.

Angus was silent for a moment, then said, “Ye’ve no been to mass lately, Lass.  Dinna think it goes unnoticed.  No by the priest.  No by God.”

Mairi looked to the floor and pursed her lips without replying.

“Mairi, will ye be at Mass this Sabbath?”

In a low tone, Mairi’s replied, “Is that why ye’ve come, Angus?  Tae preach at me aboot . . .”  Mairi’s voice became more determined and louder.  “. . . aboot if I’m a sinner?  Tae tell me my responsibilities to God?”

“No, Mairi.  I dinna . . .”

“De ye understand how hard it is to keep this croft with no husband?  Do ye know how hard I have to work to put food out for me bairns, to make the shillings I need for the factor?”  Mairi paused and picked up the cloth-covered teapot and began swirling the contents.  “I was busy enough when Peter was here.  Now, I do my work and his.  Lately I’ve no had time for the kirk.  That’s all there is to it.”

With that, Mairi poured some tea through a strainer and into a mug.  She brought the mug and a small pitcher of cream to Angus at the table and set it down saying rather tersely, “I’d have sugar for yer tea, but it been gone for several weeks.”

“Now Mairi, sit Lass.”

Mairi shook her head. 

“Very well,” continued Angus.  “We all know ye’ve suffered without Peter.  This is a hard life for a family.  It’s no life for a wife without a husband.  Still God must be the most important thing in our lives.  It’s through him that we have all that we have and we owe him.  The priest says that God expects what is due him . . .”

“The priest expects what is due him!”  Mairi interrupted with a raised voice.  “If keeping my family together until Peter comes home is no enough, if feeding my bairns so they’re strong enough to kneel each night and say their prayers is no enough, if the sweat of my labor is no worth more than the few coppers I leave in the offering, then this God is no the God I thought he was.”

“Wheesht, woman!  Tis blasphemy . . .”

“Ah, Angus.  If God would rather the potatoes rot in the ground because I dinna have enough time to get them out, or the peats not dry enough for the winter’s cold, or the corn mold on the stalk, then I’ll go to mass on the Sabbath and take the communion and speak the Latin and leave the coppers for the priest until they’re gone.  And then, when Niall and Ailean grow weak from lack of food or get the consumption and the factor sends me away because I canna pay the rent, I’ll come to ye and ask if this is the due God expected.”

“I’ll pray for ye, Mairi.”

“I am truly sorry, Angus.  I dinna mean to set upon you like that.  Here ye brought yer cart and nag tae help with the potatoes, and I welcome ye like that.  Forgive me.”

“Och, Lass.  It’s no for me to forgive.  Yer forgiveness will come at confession, but I am not put upon.  I thank ye for the tea, and now I believe there are potatoes to harvest.  Come Lads, put on yer coats.  We have work to do.  Mairi, do ye have baskets or buckets?”

Mairi replied, “Baskets, and thank ye again, Angus.”

Mairi and Angus walked on either side of the nag while Ailean and Niall rode on the wagon with the caschrom[1] and spade.  When they arrived at the field, Angus unhitched the wagon from the nag and tied the horse to a wagon wheel.  He took the tools from the cart and handed the spade to Niall.

“Here, Lad.  Ye do that row with yer mither and Ailean and me will turn the next one.  Ailean, get the buckets for ye and ye mither and come with me, Lad.”

As she and Niall slogged up the muddy mound bordered on either side by ditches to carry away the rain water, Mairi said, “Niall, I can dig if you’d rather pick.”

“Nah, Ma,” said Niall as he kicked the spade deep into the soft soil .  “I can do it.”  He turned over the soil revealing dirt covered golden nodules.  He turned over more soil in the same area then moved on to the next plant.  Mairi moved into where Niall had just dug and on her hands and knees in the mud and began feeling for potatoes.  When she found one, she’d wipe off as much as was quickly possible and then dropped it in the bucket.  When the bucket was full she took it to the wagon to dump the potatoes out.

As she was taking her first load of potatoes to the wagon, Ailean was also bringing his bucket, on he struggled with the weight letting it hit off his leg and allowing some potatoes to fall out.  Mairi set her bucket down after dumping it and went to give Ailean help.

“Here now, ye shouldna fill it so full.”  She helped him carry it to the wagon and tip it onto the bed.  Then she said, “Now, go and pick up those potatoes ye dropped.”

It took four hours before Mairi and Angus would finish for the day.  After two hours, Ailean had complained enough that Angus told him to go and keep the nag company.  Shortly thereafter, Mairi’s potato picking had caught up with Niall’s slowing digging and she told him to go and rest a bit.  When she returned with the next bucket full, both boys were gone.  She saw them in the distance heading toward home.

Angus was already at the wagon when Mairi returned with her last bucket.  He was leaning over the wagon bed pushing around potatoes, picking up the occasional potato, squeezing it, then throwing it back onto the pile.

“It’s no a lot, Mairi.”

“No, I know.  It was the wet, don’t ye suppose.”

“Aye, perhaps.”  Angus picked up another potato, squeezed it and held it out for Mairi to take.  “Some are already beginning to rot.”

Mairi took the potato and squeezed.  It was soft.  She tossed it onto the pile and shook her head.  “We best get them hame, out of the rain, before they rot anymore.”

Angus hitched up the horse and all three slowly headed back to Mairi’s cottage.  Much slower than before.

As they approached the cottage, Angus said, “Mairi, were ye expecting a visitor?”

Mairi looked toward the cottage to see a tall figure standing outside the door.  Through the light rain, she couldn’t immediately make out who it was, but then she thought, no one but Buchan is that tall.  Mairi said to Angus, “I was not, but from here it looks like Rabbie Buchan.”

“Aye, that it does,” replied Angus.

“I wonder what he’s about?” said Mairi to herself, but aloud.

Rabbie stayed next to the door, under the thatch overhang of the cottage roof, and shouted, “Mairi!  Mairi MacDonald!  It’s Rabbie Buchan!”

“Aye, I can see ye, Rabbie.  What bring ye here on a day like today?”

“I come with news, Mairi.”  Rabbie continued to stay out of the rain.  “Big news.”

Angus began turning the nag until the back of the cart faced the cottage.  As he did, Mairi stepped away and pointed to the stable door and said to Angus, “We’ll put them in there.”  Then turning back to Rabbie she said, “So, what news did ye bring then?”

“Right.  Angus, ye’ll want to hear this, as well.”

Angus replied, “Speak up then, man.  I want to get this done and get out of the rain and to a hot cup of tea.”

“Right,” said Rabbie.  “I just talked with the Factor this morning.  I saw him on the road.  Apparently, he’d been trying for the rent from MacRae again.  You know MacRae has not paid in some time.”  Rabbie paused as though allowing the last statement to settle.

“Is that the news ye’ve come to tell us, then?” asked Angus as he began pushing the nag and wagon backwards toward the stable door.  “That MacRae canna pay his rent?  Hep, hep.”

“Nay,” said Rabbie with an exasperated tone.

“What news, then?” asked Mairi with an air of impatience.

“Well, the Factor tells me that the mainland is all in an uproar, and the Laird was under a great deal of pressure, and laws were being considered in the South.  And then he said, ‘And so the Laird said to release them.’  What do you say to that?”

“I’m no followin ye, Rabbie,” said Mairi.

“Mairi, the Laird signed a release for Peter and all the others,” said Rabbie throwing his arms in the air as though triumphant.

Angus stopped with the nag.  “Why should we believe the Factor?”

“Ye dinna have to believe the factor.  He showed me the paper signed by the Laird himself.  After stopping at MacRae’s, the Factor was on his way to deliver it to the Sheriff.”  Turning to Mairi, Rabbie continued, “Mairi, Peter’s comin hame.”

Mairi was silent, as though she didn’t understand or didn’t know what to ask next.

Angus asked, “How did ye get so friendly that the Factor shows ye papers with the Lairds hand?”

“The Factor came to see me,” said Rabbie acting surprised that Angus would even ask such a thing.

“Like he came to see MacRae, too, eh?” said Angus as he once again began pushing the nag back.

Rabbie turned to Mairi, “Mairi, it’s true.  Ye can believe me or no, but I saw the papers.  It’s true.”

Mairi looked at Angus.  Angus nodded and said, “It sounds as though the Lord, God, is watchin out for ye, Mairi.”

Mairi turned away for a moment and then back to the wagon.  “We’d better get to it.  These potatoes won’t unload themselves.”

[1] A sort of spade used for cultivation.

Mairi’s Battle – Part III

I finally got going again.  What follows is what I wrote last night on the final part of the Mairi’s Battle story.  First draft.  The only editing was done during the transcribing and that was very little.  It’s certainly not done.  I suspect it will be no less than twice this length when complete.  I welcome all comments.

24 September 1882 

It had been raining for over two weeks.  Not quite constantly, but very nearly.  What was normally a thin line of silver tumbling down the brae was now a ragged and thick ribbon of white torrent.  A temporary river had formed from water spilling off the road.  It gathered strength on its way to the sea loch so that by the time it reached Mairi’s cottage it was too wide to leap across as it passed by the front door.  The cottage floor stones were constantly damp and the only way to adequately dry her clothes and the clothes of Niall and Ailean was to hang them near to the peat fire.  Mairi was certain the acrid aroma was now permanently embedded in their clothes.

Mairi had no time to wish and wait for better weather.  She still had the bairns to look after . . . to feed and keep healthy.  The coo needed to let out to graze, brought back to milk and the cream churned into butter.  The corn from the storage barrel needed to be ground and the early crops tended, then harvested and taken to the village to be sold so she could pay her rent.  The Laird’s factor would not care if it were raining or sunny when it came time to collect rent.  Besides, it rained enough that the dampness was more common than dryness.  For Mairi and all the crofters, the rain wasn’t an inconvenience or a hindrance.  It was, instead, a fact of life.  As inhaling is as much a part of breathing as exhaling, so rain was as much a part of island living as was sunny weather.

Ever since Peter and the others had been taken away, the crofters had pulled together to ensure those families left without husbands were not left to their own devices.  Mairi was no exception.  When Niall had taken ill with fever and wasn’t able to help with daily chores, nearby crofters showed up to do the work while Mairi nursed Niall back to health. 

A rather constant presence for a period was young Allen MacRae.  He first arrived when she was plowing a field.  Mairi noticed him when she had bent over at the waist to move a stone from the path of her plow.  As she struggled to move the stone while keeping the borrowed horse from walking off, she saw his feet to her side.  Mairi twisted her head slightly to look over her shoulder to see Allen staring at her, though not at her face.  Her initial though was to be perturbed at this wonton display of maleness, but quickly realized that there could be profit to be made from the situation.  She slowly stood from being bent at the waist and slightly turned so Allen could see her profile.  Still no letting on that she knew Allen was there, Mairi threw back her head and her arms as though stretching out a stiffness.  The action thrusted her chest forward increasing the curvature of her profile, and when she acted surprised that Allen was there and returned to a straight posture, she caught him now looking at the most obvious curves of her profile.

“Allen, is there something wrong, Lad?  Is there something ye need?”

Allen stammered as though suddenly woken from a daydream.  “Em . . . em, nay Miss.  Nothing.  I’ve . . . em . . . come to see if I can help ye.”

“Help me?  Well, that’s very Christian of ye, Lad.”  Pointing to the stone she’d been rolling, Mairi said, “If ye could put yer back into movin this stone . . .”  Mairi then smiled at Allen.  Soon the stone was entirely out of the field and Allen was behind the plow guiding the blade while Mairi guided the draft horse.

Allen would come nearly every day for the next month.  Then one day while she was handing him some sod to repair a leak in the cottage roof, he took her hand and wouldn’t let go until she forcefully withdrew from his grasp. 

“Allen, what are ye doin?”

Allen stared at Mairi with a look of surprise.

“Lad, if yer thinkin what it appears yer thinkin, I fear yer mistaken.  Did ye think I might be a wee bit lonely with me husband in jail?  Is that what yer thinkin?  Did ye think that because I’d no been to confession recently that I’m now full of sin?  Well, . . . if I made ye believe that there is any more here than a fail widow in need of a wee bit of help, then aye, I have sinned indeed, though tellin the priest and saying Hail Marys won’t change that.  If God is lookin at me now, then let this be my confession.  If he’s not, then I’m no certain why I’m confessing.  Do ye understand me, Lad?”

Allen did not reply, but was now looking away as though he was uncomfortable with the entire situation.

Mairi continued.  “And aye, I am lonely.  I’m lonely for me husband, not for a lad who awakes hard in the morn and thinks himself a man.  Peter is me husband.  The man I swore to God that I would stay with until I die.  And I intend to keep that promise.  Not for ye, Lad, yer a fine boy, Allen, but yer no Peter.  And it’s Peter I’m wantin.  So I think it’s time for ye to go home.”

After that Allen did not return unless it was with his father.

On this cool, rainy morning, Mairi watched as Niall and Ailean ate their porridge before all three went to harvest potatoes.  As she watched, someone rapped on the cottage door.  The the visitor said loudly, “Mairi, it’s Mackinnon.  Let me in, Lass.”

“Aye, come in, come in, Angus,” she said as she opened the door.

Angus ducked stepping through the door and stamped his feet causing a small rain shower where he stood.  He then removed his cap and slapped it against his woolen pants.  With his free hand, he ran his fingers through his hair matting its dampness to his scalp.

“It will be hard pushing a barrow full in this soft soil,” said Mackinnon.

“Aye, but the lads and I can manage.”

“Perhaps ye can.  Perhaps not.  That why the good Lord sent me to ye with me nag and cart.”  Angus opened the door and gestured toward a glistening, steaming old horse that gave all the appearance of being tired of life.  Behind it, fastened to a harness around the horse’s body, was a two-wheeled cart, black from being wet.

Mairi smiled and nodded to Angus.  “I dinna know if it was the Lord that sent ye, but ye and yer nag are a welcome sight on this day.  Can I get ye some porridge or tea?”

“Nay, nay.  Well . . . do ye have any uisghe?  I could put a wee bit in me tea to keep the chill away.”

“Och no,” said Mairi looking down.  “Not in this home, I dare say.”

Angus smiled and said, “Ah then, just a tea.”

Morning Sky Poem

Is there a word for the morning version of twilight?  It’s that time between darkness and sunrise when the light is soft and delicate.  There should be a word for it.  At any rate, this is what I wrote upon seeing it the other day.  As usual, it’s subject to revision.

The reflection of a lake.
A faintly luminous surface
dotted with islands of moss
clumping together the further
toward the distant edge
until they become a solid mass
where they meet the ground.
A black speck skitters by
passing from island to island
without raising a ripple
on the gradually lightening surface.

Two-Thirds Done

Mairi’s Battle is 2/3 done.  What’s really quite embarrassing to me is that it’s taken me nearly a year to write 30 double-spaced pages.  However, I now think I’m ready to move on with the final section of the story.  Here’s the story as it is now:

MAIRI’S BATTLE
6 May 1881

Peter left early in the morning with several other crofters to cut peats for the winter leaving Mairi and the boys to grind last fall’s corn into meal.  It was another fine day with brilliant blue skies in between small, fat clouds not being pushed in any great hurry to the east.  Mairi was happy she could sit outside rather than in the stale, dank air of the cottage.  She would work outside and open the doors and uncover the windows to let the light breeze clean the cottage air.  Yet, the very weather that allowed her to work in the cool, clean air drew her boys away from their chores and onto the brae.  Mairi knew it would, so wasn’t disappointed or angry when it did.

Mairi took the quern, in the Gaelic a brath, out of the cabinet.  It had been given to her by her mother.  Even though a mill had been built nearby and could grind the oats into a much finer meal, the cost of the milling and local surcharge were such that few of the crofters, including Mairi and Peter, could afford it.  Hand grinding had served her mother and her mother’s mother well, and it would serve her well also.  Catrìona, several crofts away, never failed to remind Mairi that whenever they could afford it, they would have their corn ground at the mill.  “It lasts longer when it’s finer, Mairi.”  Mairi would nod and smile and think to herself that Catrìona’s excess meant they had less to proffer to the Lord on the Sabbath.

Mairi spread the grinding cloth on the ground, then set the quern stones in the center.  She retrieved a bucket with rough oats and put it next to the cloth.  Mairi knelt, filled a scoop with oats and poured it into a hole in the center of the top stone.  Then she put a straight wooden rod into a hole in the top stone halfway between the center hole and the outer rim and began to turn the top stone in a circle.  Soon, ground oatmeal was falling out of the perimeter of the two stones  and onto the cloth.  When enough meal had been ground, she’d remove the two stones, gather up the edges of the cloth so the milled oats would fall to the center and funnel the meal into another bucket with a cloth liner.  Then she would start again.

Today, she intended to make enough meal to last the family for several weeks.  It would take nearly all day and it would be dull, monotonous work, but she would keep her mind occupied with songs, hymns, and psalms.

After she’d taken one bucket full of milled grain in and transferred it to the storage pot, she returned outside to find a raven scavenging the meal that had fallen off the cloth.  Mairi hissed and flapped her skirt making the end pop.  The combination was enough to frighten the bird, but not enough to frighten it away all together.  Now that it had had a tastes of grain, it would bide its time until it could makes sure there was none remaining.

Mairi watched as the raven spread its glossy black wings and flexed it muscular shoulders the same instant that it jumped skyward.  Its powerful wings lifted it enough to let it light on the thatched roof of the croft house.  From its new vantage it could watch the milling station, waiting for the moment it was left unattended.

Mairi stood with her hands on her hips glaring at the raven.  “Och, I dinna think I’ll be able to keep ye from the corn, but with God as my witness, ye’ll only get the scraps I canna get myself.  I swear it.”  She turned back and spread out her cloth and reset the quern.  When she’d knelt to begin milling again, she looked up at the raven.  It was watching her every move.  “I do believe ye are the eyes of the devil himself.”  Then flipping the back of her hand at the raven she raised her voice, “There’s no soul for ye to reap here, Satan.”  Mairi scooped oats into the quern center hole and began turning the stone, only occasionally glancing up to see the raven watching.

Peter returned after Mairi had finished with her grinding and after she had lit the supper fire.  She’d stepped out of the cottage for a breath of air after the peat smoke had filled the cottage having initially failing to escape via the chimney.  She saw Peter leave the road and head across the moor to their croft.  Mairi noticed that Peter was walking considerably slower than when he’d left that morning, even though he was now walking downhill.

“Ye look worn, Peter.”

“Aye, worn enough.”

Mairi nodded and went to the rain barrel at the corner of the cottage, took a cup hanging from a lanyard on the cottage wall and dipped it into the barrel’s water.  She then carefully delivered it to Peter who drained it in one motion.

“Duncan MacPhee was there,” said Peter, “the old fool.”

“Charity, Peter.”

“Och, Mary.  He’ll kill himself sure as the rain.  He’s too old to be working the peats.  And too old to be charitable with his bones.  He stays and helps others with their peats long after he’s worked enough for himself.”

“Aye, he’s a Godly man, he is,” said Mairi.  “Thinking of others above his own well being.”  She takes the empty cup from Peter and hangs it above the barrel.  “Like the Good Lord . . .”

“He’s a damn fool,” said Peter with a mixture of incredulity and disgust.

“Wheest!  Ye shouldna say such things.”

“Dinna wheest me, woman.  MacPhee is being a fool with his life, sure enough.  That canna be Godly.  With no life, he canna be Godly, eh!”

“Aye, Peter.  It is Godly, and ye know it.”

“Och!”  Peter huffed.  He took a wood stave bucket and turned it over next to the cottage, sat down on it and leaned back against the stone wall.  He looked off toward the road that cut across the bottom third of the brae.

“MacRae was talking again today,” he said quietly.

Mairi shook her head.

“Why do ye shake yer heid, woman!?”

“More prattle on the trouble in Ireland, no doubt.”

“They won, Mairi,” Peter was forceful, then more quietly, “They won.”  He used both hands to rub his face.  “MacRae said they’re banding together and standing up to the Laird’s hired men.  And they’re winning.”  He sat forward, “MacRae says we can, too.  We should.”

Mairi let out a deep sigh, “MacRae says, MacRae says.  Is MacRae the shepherd and the rest of ye the sheep?”

Peter initially glared at Mairi, then looked away, back toward the brae. 

Mairi fiddled with her apron.  “I’m feared of the trouble that sort of talk could cause.  We’re nearly destitute now.  If we lose anymore, if we anger the Laird, I’m feared there would be no mercy.”

Peter continued to stare to the brae while Mairi looked at him.  After a moment, she went to the cottage door.  “I’ll be tending the broth.  Find Niall and Ailean.  We’ll be eating soon.”

Mairi entered the cottage and stirred the broth.  She worried about Peter.  His irreverence was becoming more and more obvious.  After the first few years of their marriage, Peter seemed to be moving further from God and the church and, at the same time, more distant to Mairi.  She thought it was as though the hard life they led had caused him to begin questioning God, like Job had done in the Old Testament.  She and Peter would leave the kirk after Sabbath services.  She would be prayerful, reflecting on the words of the minister’s sermon.  Peter, though, would be a step or two ahead, his head down, muttering to himself things like “God’s will is no the Laird’s will” or “the old fool dinna understand.”  One Sabbath she heard him mutter something that shook her to her core partly because of what he said and partly because he became vocal, “The shepherd tends his flock.  Ha!  He dinna tend nothing.  He tramples the flock and leaves the flesh for the crows.”

Still Peter was her husband.  In front of God, she’d sworn herself to him.  It was a bond that God had consecrated and so could not be disparaged.  Abandoning the marriage never crossed her mind.  It couldn’t cross her mind.  The sacred union could only be dissolved by death.  Nevertheless, she wondered how things might be different had she chosen Robert over Peter.

She did love Peter.  She was convinced of that.  He worked hard to provide for the family all during the lean year.  He was the one who kept their minds from the growing hunger.  He was kind to her and never struck her, neither hand nor rod.  That was not his way with neither her nor the lads.  Mairi could only recall Peter raising his voice once.  He was not the type to lose his temper which was why his increasing anger with the Laird and his talk of fighting surprised her so.  He did not drink saying that he needed his wits to work the land, and he was charitable with all they had that they could offer . . . mostly Peter’s muscle and the sweat of his brow.

Niall and Ailean, eleven and nine years old respectively, were first to the table.  Mairi slapped the table causing the bowls and cups to jump and the boys stopped their horsing.  “Ye’ll get yerselves to a proper state for givin thanks to the Lord, ye will.”  Mairi gathered the bowls and filled each of the four with broth from the cauldron.  She then returned the steaming bowls to their places on the table.  She then took her station standing between the bench and the table.  Ailean noticed his mother and stood at his place, but Niall was not paying attention forcing Mairi to tug on his sleeve and say, “Niall, ye’ll stand until yer Da comes in and sits to say grace.”

As though he’d been watching from outside for the right moment, Peter stepped through the door and went straight to his place at the table.  He paused to look over the table, then with an emotionless face, he looked at Mairi and nodded.  They all sat.  Immediately, Niall and Ailean clasped their hands together and closed their eyes.  Mairi, satisfied that both boys were ready, did the same and waited for Peter to say his customary prayer at supper.  Peter, though, quietly said, “Pray silently this evening.  To yerselves.  Each in yer own way.”

Mairi looked at Peter and saw that he was not praying.  He had put his spoon in his broth and was crumbling an oatcake over the soup.  She anxiously looked at the two boys and saw they were still praying.  She was relieved. 

“Will there be enough peats for the winter?” Mairi asked without looking at Peter.

“Aye.  More than enough.”

“Lads, ye’ll need to help yer father when the time comes to bring the peats hame.”

“Can I go this year, Da?” asked Ailean.

“Aye, ye can and ye will.  Ye’ll be a man soon enough.  Time to put some meat on these bones so ye can stand for yerself,” said Peter reaching over and squeezing Ailean’s arm.

“I’m a man already,” said Niall in a bragging tone directed at Ailean.

“Nay,” retorted Ailean.

“Aye.  I am.  More than you.”

“Nay, yer a liar Niall.”

“Ailean!”  Mairi raised her voice.  “There’ll be no callin anyone in this family a liar, or ye’ll feel the rod.  Do ye understand me, boy?  And Niall, there’ll be no more tormenting the lad.  No more.  Would ye expect our Lord, Jesus Christ, to act in such a way?”

The table went silent and stayed that way until Mairi broke the silence.

“Catroìna came and asked for butter this morning,” Mairi said to Peter.  “She said Tormod is going to try and sell their coo for meat.  Then they’d use the money for another coo.  It seems the one they use for butter and cream isn’t milking so well.”

“It’s no the coo,” said Peter in a low tone.

“But, Catroìna said . . . Tormod said . . .”

“Och, it’s no the coo.  It’s wha the coo eats.  They eat this rough grass doon here near the water.  It’s no good.  Have ye seen how boney the coos doon here look?  It’s no the coos, it’s wha they eat.”

Mairi considered this for a moment, then said, “If it’s the grass they’re eatin, why aren’t MacRae’s coos . . .”

Peter set down his spoon with a loud crack and interrupted, “Because MacRae sneaks his coos onto the brae where there’s better grass.”

“But, our priest says . . .”

“Aye, I know.  In the eyes of God, that would be stealing.  Well, in the eyes of God, MacRae’s stealing from the Laird.  And his coos are fat from it.  I tell ye Mairi, and I tell it to ye true, I do believe Laird Mac has the good priest in his waistcoat pocket.  Have ye ever noticed that the Laird can do no wrong in the words of the priest?  It’s always we who are damned, no he.  Suffer the children . . .”  Peter stood at the table and ran his hands through his hair.  “Aye, suffer the children.  The Laird should attend to the words and suffer his crofters.”

Mairi bolted up from her chair, “Peter!”

Peter looked at her with the disdain that had been apparent in his voice.

“Lads,” said Mairi keeping her eyes on Peter, “take yer bannocks and gae outside.”

Ailean and Niall had stopped eating, apparently entranced by their father’s demonstrative anger.  It was not something they’d seen often.  So, when neither moved from their seats, Mairi raised her voice, “Now!”  Both boys grabbed their remaining bannocks and slowly moved toward the door, occasionally looking back at their father who was now seated again.  “Out we ye, but dinna gae far.  Do ye hear me?”

“Peter, please dinna speak that way in front of the bairns.  Ye’ll fill their heids with disrespectful thoughts when there should be none.  Turning God’s words against the Laird and the priest . . . what is that teaching them?  Especially Ailean.  He’s so young.”

Peter shifted his gaze from one area in the cottage to another without saying a word.

“Is this what you men talk about while cutting peat?  Treason and blasphemy?”

Peter smacked his hand on the table and pointed at Mairi.  “Ye’ll hold yer waggin tongue, woman!  Ye hae no notion the sort of things we talk about.  Ye hae no idea.”

“Well then, tell me.”  Mairi sat down.

Peter looked away and quietly asked, “What do ye know of Canada?  Do ye think ye’d like it there?”

“Canada?”

“Aye, Canada.”  Peter pushed his bowl away.  “MacKrimmon talked about the report from his brother who was displaced from his croft and sent there.  Are ye ready to take what we can carry, take weeks crossing the sea to land where we’d have no prospects?  That’s what we talk about.  What’s to become of us?  That’s what we talk about.  That’s our treason and blasphemy.”

Peter stood, stepped away from the table and stopped with his back to Mairi.  Mairi was silent.

“Mairi,” said Peter quietly, “why is it so hard for us?  For all of us on these wretched crofts?  We’re all God’s children.  Just as the Laird and his family are God’s children.  Have I sinned somehow that I am being punished with poverty?  Is the Laird’s gold in his purse and silver on his table because he’s righteous and without sin?  Why does the Father allow one child to suffer so while another child eats from china, sleeps on feather beds, and drinks wine from a crystal goblet?  The rich of God’s children keeps others of God’s children poor and hungry and unable to make a better life by keeping them on poor soil and charging high rents and keeping the good grazing ground to himself.”  Peter turned back to face Mairi.  “Explain it to me, Mairi.”

Mairi folded the fingers of both hands together and stared at the table top.  Quietly she said, “The Father said we will never understand everthing the Lord does.  We can only pray and hope that our prayers are answered and that we don’t offend Him.”

Peter didn’t answer, but Mairi was sure what he was thinking, and it frightened her.  What he was saying belied a blasphemy that could threaten to damn Peter, Mairi, and the two boys to a fate worse than that they were currently suffering.  God certainly knew what was in Peter’s thoughts.  Confession was the only hope they would have, and she felt no great comfort that Peter would mention it in there.  The thought crossed her mind to talk to the priest about it.  Perhaps if she mentioned it in her confession, the Lord would extend His forgiveness to them all, including Peter.

“So, as much as I’m afraid to ask, what are the men saying about what MacRae is doing with his coos?”

“They see MacRae as a brave man.  As a man who knows what’s right and acts to make it right.”

“And you feel the same?”

“I do.”

“And how do you answer the charge that it’s trespassing on the Laird’s land . . . clearly a sin in the eyes of the Lord.”

“Trespassing’s only a sin for the Presbyterians,” retorted Peter.

“Mairi glared at him.  “Presbyterian, Catholic.  It dinna matter, Peter.”

“Maybe it should, Mairi.  Maybe it should.”

“That’s no for us to say.”

“Och!”  Peter lifted both hands over his head and walked out of the cottage.  Mairi gave him a moment and then followed.  When she got outside, she saw in the twilight that Peter had a steady and deliberate stride heading toward the sea loch.  It would be useless for Mairi to try to catch him.  Peter’s tall frame and long legs would continue to increase the distance between them.  She would find the boys, send them to bed, and wait.

It was then that she noticed the cool air contained no hint of the acrid smell from the peat smoke she’d gotten use to in the cottage.  Instead, she could smell salt and the uncovered mud flats with its slowly decaying kelp carried into the bay on the high tide.  She leaned back against the stone façade and closed her eyes.  There was the distinct aroma of oyster shells that had sat in their baskets too long.  There, on the slight breeze, distinct but no separate from the other smells, was the honey and floral notes from the brae on the other side of the sea loch.

When she opened her eyes, high in the sky, where night had begun to encroach on the quickly retreating day, was a lone, bright spot and it shone clear, without the hint of a flicker.  It was, for Mairi, God’s voice.  Unwavering.  It was as though He was saying, “I’ve seen your suffering, your hardship, and here, on a night I’ve given you to calm your anguish, is the perfect expression of my understanding.  A light to pierce through the blackness.  That is what I am.  The light in your darkness.  I will always be there for you, Mairi.  Just as this star will always be here.”

Mairi knelt where she stood, closed her eyes again and prayed.  She prayed directly to God without invoking Jesus or the Blessed Virgin and she apologized for it in her silence.  She asked for forgiveness for herself for thinking that her pleas might garner God’s attention and that he might act even if only to look away when she offended him if she asked for pity.  She asked that he forgive Peter’s transgressions of word and thought explaining that the best way that she knew how that Peter’s only sin was placing his family ahead of his glory to God.  She begged that if Peter was to be punished, it would not be too severely.  Finally, she prayed that Ailean and Niall remain innocent as the sheep wandering the breas

The thought of children and sheep wandering the hills caused her to open her eyes to see that it was now dark, and her innocents were nowhere to be seen.  She closed her eyes again and hurriedly finished her prayer.  She spoke “Amen” aloud and ran the ‘n’ together with the beginning of “Niall” and the volume increased so that by the end of her son’s name, she was shouting.

Mairi went inside the cottage and re-emerged with a lit oil lamp that she then set on the stone fence.  After two times calling their names, she waited.  Soon she heard their voices.  Ailean shouted “Niall, wait!”  In a minute, Niall ran out of the darkness and through the lamplight to stand panting at his mother’s side.

“Where’s Ailean?” Mairi asked.

Niall pointed into the dark.

“Ye shouldn’t leave him alone at night.”  Mairi shouted into the night, “Ailean!”

Ailean appeared in the lamplight, panting as well.

“So, where were ye?”

Ailean pointed back toward where he’d come from, back toward the brae nearest them.

“At the road,” Niall said after taking a deep breath.  Ailean moved from the lamp to where Niall stood.

“What were ye doin there?”

“We were fightin the soldiers!” blurted out Ailean before Niall could answer.  He suffered a punch on his arm for it, too.

Mairi glared at them both, then pointed to the door.  “In with ye, both.  Now!”  Niall and Ailean trudged toward the door.  As they passed through, Niall slapped the back of Ailean’s head.  Mairi turned and looked toward the sea loch in a vain attempt to see Peter.  She stayed for a moment, crossed herself, and went inside.  She was oblivious when Peter laid down next to her.

In the morning, Mairi woke to the sound of the milk-cow resisting going into the stall attached to the cottage.  Then she smelled the unmistakable aroma of damp thatch and could feel the humidity in the cool air.  How long had she slept?  Peter and Niall were awake.  She could hear them with the cow.  Was Ailean still asleep?

She rose and used the blanket as a shawl, draping it over her shoulders and nightgown.  Opening the door, the reason for the dampness became obvious.  A soft, but steady rain was falling.  The only sound it made was where it dripped from the thatch of the roof into an expanding puddle.

Peter emerged from the stable and turned toward where Mairi stood.  She stepped back from the door as he brushed past her without saying a word.

“Is Niall with ye?” she asked as he passed.

Peter only nodded.

“Is he milking?”

“Aye, what he can,” replied Peter.  “The coo isn’t giving up much.”

“Is it not well?”

“Aye, well enough.”  Peter took a bite of bannock he’d taken from a bowl on the table.  “It canna give more than it takes in.”  Peter walked back out of the cottage and to the stable.

Mairi pulled the blanket shawl tighter around her neck and closed the door.  Returning to her bed, she sat down and silently prayed until she heard Ailean wake, pull on some clothes and quickly dash outside before returning with a damp mat of hair.

18 April 1882

“They’re here!  They’re here!  Comin’ roon the brae!” the cry pierced through gaps in the door slats and the cloth covering the open window.  Mairi pushed open the door, standing in the damp April air and watched as neighbors left their crofts and headed toward the road.

Mairi knew it would happen, but it still came as a surprise.  She had hoped it would all disappear, like the mist that creaps in from the sea and then, one day, dissipates to blue skies and pony-tail wisps.  She hoped Laird MacDonald would take mercy on them, seeing how wretched and poor their lives were.  It would be the right thing, the Christian thing, for him to do, like when Christ took pity on the masses and fed them on the shores of Galilee.

For weeks, now, the crofters refused to pay their rents to the Laird’s factor unless they were given permission to graze their animals on the slopes of Ben Lee.  In response, the Laird sent his factor and the Inverness sheriff to serve eviction summonses.  Mairi’s husband, Peter, and the men from the surrounding crofts, Norman Stewart and Alexander Finlayson—two trouble-makers—set upon the factor and sheriff forcing them to burn the eviction documents.  There was whisky and fires late into the evening that night as the crofters celebrated their victory.

Mairi knew they would come back.  Still she prayed.  She prayed for the Lord to deliver her family from the poverty that was her heritage for so many generations, she almost believed there was nothing God could do to change it.  She prayed for the Lord to share his Grace with the Laird MacDonald that he might understand and take pity on those beholden to him.  She prayed that the crofters would remain righteous in God’s eyes by turning the other cheek.

When it appeared that each of her prayers had gone unanswered, she prayed a prayer of contrition and apology.  It wasn’t her place to question God’s plan.  Everything was His doing.  This was God’s design.  The Laird was wealthy because God willed it.  Her family was poor and hungry because God determined that to be their status in the world.  How could she question the architect of this world, the One who gave her her husband and children, the One who painted the glorious Skye sunsets and who caused the Northern Lights to billow in the night sky?  Mairi thought she may have offended God with her selfishness, and she finished her prayer with tears.

When she stood in the doorway and saw her neighbors leaving their crofts for the main road, she folded her hands and bowed her head.  “Dear Lord, help them to see your plan and know their place in it.  You are truly a great God from whom all things emanate.  We all are humble and give thanks for what we have.  Amen.”

As she finished, Peter came round the side of the house, a wood pitchfork in one hand.  He stood with Mairi for a moment, watching, and then quietly said, “MacLeod says constables are comin’.  From Glasgow.  About fifty.  The Laird must have hired them to run us off.”  He fell silent for a moment, then continued, “I have to go, Mairi.”

“No, dinna go, Peter.  No.”

“Hush woman.  I was there at the beginning.  I’ll be there at the end.”

“There’s only trouble there, Peter.  Someone could get hurt.  You could get hurt.  Then where would we be?”

Peter remained silent.

“If it’s the constables, you could be arrested.”  Mairi’s voice began to crack.  “Think of this, Peter.  If you don’t go, if the Laird hears that we weren’t part of this, he might take pity on us and leave us alone.”

Peter looked at Mairi with dark eyes and shook his head.

“What if this is the Lord’s will, Peter?”

Peter kicked a stone, then looked to the distance where already a crowd gathered.  “Then I suppose I should get on with earning my passage into Hell.”  Peter began walking toward the road and the growing band of crofters.

Mairi lifted her apron and held it to her face, in part from shame over Peter’s blasphemous comment, and in part to catch the tears of fear now streaking her cheeks.

She imagined being put out of her home and being sent to a seaside village where Peter would need to learn fishing and the women waited on shore to clean the fish or waded out into the low tide muck in search of clams and mussels.  She’d been told the smell of raw fish never leaves you, though you get used to it in time.  Niall and Ailean would be forced into someone’s employ to help put food on the table every day.  Worse still, they could all be put on a boat and sent to Canada or the United States.  She’d heard rumors that life in Canada could be difficult with short growing seasons and bitter cold winters.  In the States, foreigners were looked upon with disdain and treated as outcasts. 

Those fears were soon forgotten, though, when from her periphery she saw Niall and Ailean running to join Peter.

“Niall, Ailean, come home, now!”

They did not stop, nor look back.

“Even if they could hear ye Lass, they wouldna come home.”  Old Anna approached from behind the house.  She carried a large walking stick and a cloth bag at the end of a leather strap that she had over her shoulder and across her body.  The bag was filled with something weighty.

“Anna, they shouldna be going.  This isn’t something for bairns.”

“I’m thinking ye couldna stop them.”  Anna leaned on the walking stick slightly out of breath.  “They want to be men, and men they’ll be today.”

“No!” cried Mairi.  “They’re too young!”

“Mairi, when yer protectin yer hame, no one’s too young.”

Mairi looked after Peter and her sons and began to sob.

“Here now, Lass.”  Anna put her arm around Mairi’s shoulder.  “They’ll be fine, I warrant it.  I’ll tell ye what ye can do.  Why don’t ye come with me, and we’ll go and keep a watchful eye on those lads o yers, eh?”  Anna squeezed Mairi’s shoulder.

Mairi nodded.

“Ah, fine.  That’s grand.  Here now, carry me bag if ye will.  I’m no as young as I used to be.”

Anna lifted the strap over her head and handed it to Mairi.  Mairi nearly dropped it, it was so weighty.

“What’s in here?” Mairi asked while opening the mouth of the bag to look.

“Some wee stones I gathered in the field.”

Mairi quizzically looked at Anna.

“There of no use in the field now, are they.”

As they walked toward the road, Mairi was conflicted.  She wanted to rush to where her boys were, but she felt obliged to stay with Anna who was laboring with the soft, uneven ground and the slight incline.  To make matters worse, Anna did not talk in her exertion, leaving Mairi to fret unabated.  At one point, Mairi asked Anna if the constables would carry guns.  All she received in reply was Anna’s heavy breathing and a wave of impatience from her free hand.

The crofters, men, women and children, arrayed themselves along the short stone fence bordering the road.  Four men and one woman crossed the fence and now stood on the road facing in the direction from which the constables would approach.  As Mairi approached the forty or so crofters she began to hear murmurings and an occasional raised voice.  Nearly all gathered had something in their hands—a rake, hoe, pitchfork, a walking stick, or stone.  It frightened Mairi.

“I don’t see Niall or Ailean.”  She stopped thirty feet from the crowd.

Anna took a step or two past her unaware they were stopping, then leaned heavily on her stick and looked back at Mairi.  Between deep breaths she said, “Well, come on then.  Ye’ll no find em back here.”

Mairi was becoming more frightened by the apparent attitude of the crofters and didn’t move.  “I canna see them, Anna.  Can you?”

“Lass, let’s go look together.”

“No, no.  I want them to come to me.  To come away from that . . . that . . . rabble.  Can’t ye see?”

“Aye, I can see well enough.  Yer afeared, aren’t ye, Lass?”  Anna shook her head and stepped back toward Mairi.  “Give me the stones then.  I’ll find yer bairns and shush them back to ye.”

Mairi helped Anna lift the leather strap over Anna’s head and onto her shoulder.

“Mairi, the future of yer hame, yer life, is going to be right here, on this road.  The Laird’s hired men are coming to take it all away from ye.  Will ye no stand up for yerself?”

Mairi said nothing, looking past Anna as though she hadn’t heard a word.  Anna turned, shaking her head, and trundled to the back of the crowd.  Soon Niall and Ailean emerged from the crowd slowly and dejectedly walked toward Mairi.  Ailean stumbled and fell from watching behind him and not on the ground he was walking.

“What are you two doing here?  This is no place for young lads.”

“Others are here, Ma,” said Niall pointing back to the crowd.

“Well, they shouldn’t be.  This is not a Christian gathering.  This is not the sort of thing Christ would have taught us.  No.  I’ll no have my bairns straying from the teachings of Christ.  Do you hear me?”

Before the boys could answer, one of the men in the crowd shouted, “There!” and soon all eyes, including Mairi’s, were focused down the road where a lone horseman rode out from behind a rise.  The rider trotted a short distance, then stopped.  He stayed there for several moments before wheeling his horse and leaving from the way he’d come, disappearing around the curve and behind the rise.

To a soul, the crofters remained silent while the rider was in sight.  As soon as he disappeared, their murmurings started again, but at a noticeably higher decibel.

“See, now,” Mairi said, her voice betraying relief, “he spied us and thought better of it.  It’s all over.  We should be to hame, now.”

“What about Da?” asked Ailean.

“They’re all staying, Ma,” said Niall.

“It’s over,” Mairi raised her voice, “and that’s the last I’ll say of it.  Ye’ll go hame now and say yer prayers thanking God for his grace and wisdom that kept us all safe.”

“Look!” shouted Ailean pointing back down the road.  “Look, Niall.”

From behind the same rise, the rider reemerged.  This time, men on foot followed.  From this distance and in the muted light, Mairi could still see their dark uniforms with dark caps.  The crofter’s murmuring stopped again.

 It was now coming to pass, and the fear gripped her by the throat.  Marching up the road in navy uniforms with brass buttons was her misery.  They were the harbingers of homelessness.  On their belts were truncheons of destitute lives.  On their caps were badges of cold-heartedness.  Mairi began to feel the desolation deep into her soul.

Still, her soul was buoyed by the thought that this was all part of God’s plan.  Recognizing that her destiny was unfolding before her, even though she had no notion of what that destiny held, was a small comfort.  These constables could be, instead of the messengers of misery, the instruments of God’s will come to ensure God’s will come to pass. 

Nevertheless, she feared them and the destiny they brought.  She feared finding a new home.  She feared going hungry and watching her bairns starve.  Most of all, she feared the possibility she could be put on a boat destined for a different and foreign land.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone turn and run away, toward the crofts of Balmeanach.  With her eyes, Mairi followed his flight until he disappeared behind some buildings.  When she looked back, Niall and Ailean were no longer in front of her.  They were nowhere to be seen.  Mairi panicked and moved closer to the road to try to find them.  When she reached the stone wall, she saw them.  They were on the road with their father, Peter, facing the oncoming constables.

“Niall!  Ailean!”

The boys looked at her, then at their father.  Peter patted Ailean on the head.  They stayed with him.

“Peter!  I dinna want them there!”

Peter looked at her and frowned.

“Fine young men ye raised there, Mairi,” said Anna tanking Mairi’s arm.  “Their Da will keep them from harm.”

“He shouldna have to,” said Mairi.  “They shouldna be there.”

“Och, let them be, Lass.  Ye’ll remember wha they done here wi’ pride, ye will.  They’re good, brave lads, sure.”

Anna moved back toward the bulk of the crofters.  Mairi looked to the approaching constables who were now close enough she could make out the determination on their faces.  Then, from her right periphery, she saw more people from Balmeanach climbing the hill toward the road.  To her left she saw movement among the stones on the slope above the road.  Now the constables would be outnumbered, and it only served to build Mairi’s dread.

The crofters were silent as the constables approached.  Mairi wondered what they were thinking.  With more coming up from Balmeanach and those on the hill, she began to worry even more that this confrontation would become a conflict of high emotion rather than a meeting of reasoned coolness.  She looked back to Peter, Niall, and Ailean, and became even more fearful.  Looking for strength, she folded her hands, bowed her head, and silently prayed.

The constables stopped short of the gathered crofters.  Their eyes, edgy, almost frightened, their heads constantly moving as though they expected something to happen and wanted to see from which quarter it started.

The crofters began drifting down the stone wall until they were abeam the constables.  Peter, Niall, Ailean and the other men blocking the road moved closer as well.  Mairi followed from behind the stone wall.

“Yer no welcome here!” shouted one of the men standing next to Peter.  “There’s nothing for ye here.  Go back to where ye come.”

From the front of the constables, the sheriff replied, “We’re no here for a welcome.”

“Then go hame!” shouted someone from the wall.

“Aye, off with ye, ye buggerin bastards!” shouted someone else followed by a chorus of “ayes” and grumbles from the crofters shaking their sticks and raising their fists.

The constables’ unease was now palatable.  Many removed their truncheons from their belts and held them at the ready.  Mairi could see that some began moving into a stance she could only imagine was in preparation for an attack. 

The sheriff dismounted his horse and reached into his coat breast pocket pulling out a folded paper.  He kept watch on the crowd as he unfolded the paper and prepared to read.

“The Laird Alexander MacDonald and the magistrate of Portree have issued a warrant for the arrest of Norman Stewart, Alexander Finlayson, Malcolm Finlayson, Peter MacDonald, Donald Nicholson, and James Nicholson . . .”

Mairi heard her husband’s name and panic swelled in her breast.  She could feel her throat constrict and her breathing quicken.  Where was God, she wondered.  Where was his compassion and justice?  Certainly he could not be looking down on the misery that was about to be inflicted with a dispassionate heart.  Certainly, he would not loose the wolves on his flock.

From the crofters, someone yelled, “Ye canna fool us, ye’ve come to hump our sheep.”  The crowd burst into laughter.

“Ye’re all the shite in the field.”

A woman followed, “Nay, they’re the worms under the shite.”  More laughter.

“Ye’ll nay take a one, sae help me,” Peter replied to the sheriff.  “Ye can drag yer bloody arses back tae Glasgow.”

“Oh God, no, Peter.  No,” whispered Mairi.  She saw Naill standing next to his father.  He now held a stone in his right hand.  Ailean had backed away.

“Ailean!  Ailean!  Come here!” and the lad began making his way to Mairi all the while keeping watch on the formation of constables.  When he reached Mairi, she could see the fear in his eyes and when she stroked his hair, she could feel a tremble.  She took his hand and held him close to her. 

“Wheest, child.”

The crofters were tense, waiting, it seemed to Mairi, for an excuse to rush the constables.  The constables were tense as well, fearing what appeared to be the inevitable pain of sticks and stones.  The crofters began shouting at the invaders.  There was Anna shaking her walking stick in their direction and shouting, “Go hame, ye buggerer of boys!”

Mairi saw the sheriff turn toward the constables behind him and then point to the men blocking the road, including Peter and Niall.  The sheriff then stepped out of the way and a dozen or so constables, truncheons in hand, began walking toward the men the sheriff identified.  Apparently, that was all the crofters required.  Stones started flying toward the constables.  A few crofters hopped up on the stone wall and began swinging their sticks and tools at the police.  Mairi saw movement on the hillside and looked in time to see several large stones rolling toward the massed constables.

The din was tremendous.  Mairi couldn’t make out what most were saying, but she could tell it was being said in anger.  She looked down at Ailean who was now hugging her side.  It’s not right, she thought, it’s not right.  These uniformed men, these strangers who’ve never seen any of us before, have been sent to do the bidding of the one who does know us.  They’re the hired tools of a coward.  No better and not much different from oxen yoked to do their masters’ labors.

As she watched in frozen horror, the clash between crofters and constables became more involved and pitched.  Crofters clambered over the stone wall only to face truncheons being swung wildly in an attempt to keep crofters at a distance and to deflect incoming sticks and tools.  Mairi saw crofters being hit by truncheons and staggering away.  Moments later they were ready to rejoin the fray.  She saw constables backing away from the pressing crowd.  It appeared the crofters were gaining the advantage.  Then she saw Anna stumble away from the crowd.  Mairi went to her.

“Are ye hurt?”

“Aye,” whispered Anna as though she was out of breath.  “A wee bit.  A bastard got
me . . . before I could get . . . one of them.”

Anna turned her head away from Mairi.  Her neck was brilliant red and a small trickle of blood escaped from her ear.  Mairi hissed, sucking in air.

“Striking a woman.  Have they no decency?  It’s no too bad, Anna.”

“That’s no why . . . I left,” continued Anna.  “I also got hit . . . in the chest.  Knocked the breath . . . from me.”

Mairi helped Anna sit on the ground.  When Mairi knelt to clean the blood from Anna’s ear, Anna brushed her away and pointed to the road.  Mairi saw a desperate struggle between the men on the road and the constables.

“Peter won’t . . . give up yer hame . . . without a good row,” said Anna.

Mairi looked up to the road and Peter who was struggling against the grasping hands of the constables.  She stood.  A truncheon lifted above the fray.  It swung down.  Niall fell to the ground.

“No!” Mairi shouted and began running toward the fighting men.  “A dhiobhail!”  She hadn’t spoken Gaelic in years and now the first thing out of her mouth was to curse the constable as a devil. 

Niall crawled away from the brawl.  Mairi rushed to him.  He was crying and holding his left shoulder.  Mairi helped him away from the road.  When they stopped, she tried to cajole him to stop crying to no avail. 

Two constables now had Peter on the ground and one was striking Peter with his fist.  Mairi looked down, then moved Niall to the side and picked up a potato-sized stone.  With all her might, she hurled it at the men holding Peter.  When she’d thrown it, she yelled, “A mitic an deamhan!”  [You son of the devil!]

Her stone fell short of the men, but one saw her throw it and nodded toward her and said something to another constable.

“Yer a poofter!” shouted Mairi.  “Aye, you, ye clotheid.”

The constable took two steps toward Mairi and stopped.

“Cha toll?” she taunted.  “Pog mo thon!”  [No?  Kiss my ass!]

Mairi picked up another stone and threw it at the stopped constable.  He caught it before it could hit him.  He shook his head, dropped the stone, and turned back toward the brawl.  Mairi shrieked in exasperation.

The crofters who had been blocking the road, including her Peter, were now being drug back to the main body of constables who were still fighting off crofter sticks and stones.  The arrested men were handcuffed, yet struggling against their captors.  In short order, the constables and their captors were enveloped in the main body of constables.  When they were all together the constables slowly began backing down the road they’d arrived on with the shouting and harassing crofters in pursuit.

Mairi lost sight of Peter.  She left Niall and Ailean with Anna, who was still sitting and panting, and followed the crowd.  She picked up a stone and was preparing to throw it when she realized that Peter was somewhere amongst the constables and her stone might hit him.  So she dropped the stone and instead shouted, “ Yer mither’s a salope and yer the gowk from her wame!”  She saw another woman pick up a stone to throw and said, “No, no.  Our men are in there.”

When it became apparent to Mairi that Peter was going to be taken away and the gathered crofters weren’t going to affect it, she stopped following and watched the crofters and constables drift slowly down the road, still in contact with each other.  Soon more and more crofters fell out of the crowd.  The pace of the constables quickened. 

Mairi still seethed with anger at the whole situation—the Laird and his lackey factor, the sheriff, and the hired constables.  How dare they come into her space, her home, with ill intent?  They were invaders.  She hated them all.  They were vile thieves.

Mairi turned away from the retreating army and returned to her boys and Anna.  Both boys had stopped crying, though Ailean still gulped large breaths of air.  Mairi brushed back his hair from his face, then with her thumbs, wiped the dirt streaks on his cheeks.

“Where are they takin Da?” Ailean asked.

“Awa, lad,” she whispered.  “Dinna fash yerself.  Yer Da will be back soon enough.”

Mairi turned to Niall who was still favoring the shoulder that had been struck.

“Ah, Niall.  Are ye hurt bad, dear?”

Niall shook his head.

“Can ye lift yer arm?” she asked helping him raise his arm from his side.  “Good.  It’s no broken then.”

“I’m proud of ye, Mairi,” Anna said pulling herself to her knees.  “Ye stood up for yer man and yer hame, ye did.  Against them coofs.”

Mairi looked back down the road and muttered, “Ifrinn an diabhuill . . . a dhia, thoir cobhair.”  [Devil’s hell . . . God help us]

“God dinna help them like us, lass,” said Anna.  She lifted her arm toward Mairi who took it helping Anna to her feet.  “It’s the Laird he helps.  The Laird and them like him.”

“Anna, wha now?”

“Aye, wha now.”  Suddenly Anna looked frantically toward the crofters that were now trudging back.  “Have ye seen Angus?”

“Aye, I did.  He was fine.”

Anna looked back at Mairi and smiled.  Patting Mairi’s cheek, Anna said, “Aye, wha now.  I guess we go hame, go hame and wait.  Will ye be alright, then?  Just ye and the lads, there?”

Mairi nodded.

“Come on then, lads,” said Anna.  “Let’s tak yer mither hame so ye can wait for yer Da’s return.”

In the quiet walk home, Mairi relived the day ending in the anxiousness she now felt returning.  Her husband was gone, taken by the agents of a greedy, powerful, uncaring man.  The Laird had taken her man, her boys’ father.  She and the boys could manage the croft for a short while, but soon those same agents led by the Laird’s cousin, the Factor, would come to put her out.  She and her boys, and what they could carry, would be sent to a fishing village or put on a boat to Canada.  How would Peter find them when released from custody?  How would they ever find each other in a foreign land?  She had no answers.  No convenient comforts to ease her fears.  Answers abandoned her when she needed them most.

He abandoned her . . . or she abandoned Him.  I didn’t matter.  He wasn’t there.  He didn’t protect her or her family from the calamity they now faced.  He had to know what was happening to them and He turned a blind eye. 

When they arrived at the croft, Mairi said farewell to Anna, assuring her again she would be fine, and sent the boys inside.  She stayed outside the door in the cool, damp air and watched her neighbors and villagers stream back from the scene of the battle.  Some remained defiant, boisterous to those for whom it did not matter.  Most, though, were silent.  Mairi thought they were contemplating the ramifications of the day and their futures that were already rather bleak.  Most were barely able to eke enough from the rock-strewn, spongy soil to pay their rent, let alone have some money left over for fish or coal.  The Laird would certainly be harsh in his retribution for their insolence, and they walked as though they knew it.

It was when Duncan MacPhee passed that her soul blackened into obscurity.  Duncan was the most God-fearing man she knew.  Many said he should be the reverend rather than the sot they had.  As he walked past Mairi’s croft, she could see blood matting the hair on his head and in his beard.  Here was a man who, of all men, had no sin.  He lived day-to-day by God’s word.  He prayed night and day.  If God would love and protect anyone, it would be Duncan MacPhee.

Yet, here he was trudging back from the confrontation with the constables and on his head a sign that God had not been with him, had not protected him.  Could it be Duncan was also being punished?  Could God not forgive him this once for all the years Duncan had been his most devoted servant?  As the Lord’s devoted servant, Duncan suffered like every other crofter.  Diseased crops, starving beasts, and a demanding landlord plagued Duncan no less than it did, say, David Conroy who drank too much, whose every sentence contained curse words and who routinely disappeared leaving his family to fend for themselves.  His life and Duncan’s life were equally hard.  How could that be?

Did God not care?  Could he not see this part of the world to know the pain and suffering they were enduring?  Had he washed his hands of men only to intervene in the world to punish?  Is there not a better way, a more compassionate way, to deal with our misery?  Can He not think of anything better?

Mairi took a deep breath and turned to go inside.  She stood next to the fire for a moment, then said, “Lads, come here.  I dinna know when yer Da will come home.  It may be soon, or maybe no.  I’m sure the factor will soon call and charge us to leave.  So, we need to be ready.  I’ll be relyin on ye two to help.  Do ye understand me?”

Niall and Ailean nodded.

Mairi looked into the fire and continued, “Aye, we’re on our own now.  There’s no one to help.  We must do what we have to.  Rely on no one or nothing.”

At Long Last – Maybe

I’d been promising myself I’d get back to this for ages on end, but haven’t been able to focus on writing much.  I’d sit down and write a page and wouldn’t come back to it for a month or more.  Recently, I’d written about two pages on it.  My hope is that by putting it here, it’ll give me a bit more motivation to complete it. 

The thought for the first section was to introduce the main characters and the setting they’re in and set up the conflict for the battle in the second part.  The last part, something I haven’t started on, will be the aftermath of the battle.

MAIRI’S BATTLE
6 May 1881

Peter left early in the morning with several other crofters to cut peats for the winter leaving Mairi and the boys to grind last fall’s corn[1] into meal.  It was another fine day with brilliant blue skies in between small, fat clouds not being pushed in any great hurry to the east.  Mairi was happy she could sit outside rather than in the stale, dank air of the cottage.  She would work outside and open the doors and uncover the windows to let the light breeze clean the cottage air.  Yet, the very weather that allowed her to work in the cool, clean air drew her boys away from their chores and onto the brae.  Mairi knew it would, so wasn’t disappointed or angry when it did.

Mairi took the quern, in the Gaelic a brath, out of the cabinet.  It had been given to her by her mother.  Even though a mill had been built nearby and could grind the oats into a much finer meal, the cost of the milling and local surcharge were such that very few of the crofters, including Mairi and Peter, could afford it.  While the hand grinding of the corn was hard work and resulted in a meal that was certainly coarser than what she’d get at the mill, hand grinding had served her mother and her mother’s mother well and it would serve her well also.  Catrìona, several crofts away, never failed to remind Mairi that whenever they could afford it, they would have their corn ground at the mill.  “It lasts longer when it’s finer, Mairi.”  Mairi would nod and smile and think to herself that Catrìona’s excess meant they had less to proffer to the Lord on the Sabbath.

Mairi spread the grinding cloth on the ground, then set the quern stones in the center.  She retrieved a bucket with rough oats and put it next to the cloth.  Mairi knelt, filled a scoop with oats and poured it into a hole in the center of the top stone.  Then she put a straight wooden rod into a hole in the top stone halfway between the center hole and the outer rim and began to turn the top stone in a circle.  Soon, ground oatmeal was falling out of the perimeter of the two stones  and onto the cloth.  When enough meal had been ground, she’d remove the two stones, gather up the edges of the cloth so the milled oats would fall to the center and funnel the meal into another bucket with a cloth liner.  Then she would start again.

Today, she intended to make enough meal to last the family for several weeks.  It would take nearly all day and it would be dull, monotonous work, but she would keep her mind occupied with songs, hymns and psalms.

After she’d taken one bucket full of milled grain in and transferred it to the storage pot, she returned outside to find a raven scavenging the meal that had fallen off the cloth.  Mairi hissed and flapped her skirt making the end pop.  The combination was enough to frighten the bird from Mairi’s milling station, but not enough to frighten it away all together.  Now that it had had a tastes of grain, it would bide its time until it could makes sure there was none remaining.

Mairi watched as the raven spread its glossy black wings and flexed it muscular shoulders the same instant that it jumped skyward.  Its powerful wings lifted it just enough to let it light on the thatched roof of the croft house.  From its new vantage it could watch the milling station, waiting for the moment it was left unattended.

Mairi stood with her hands on her hips glaring at the raven.  “Och, I dinna think I’ll be able to keep ye from the corn, but with God as my witness, ye’ll only get the scraps I canna get myself.  I swear it.”  She turned back and spread out her cloth and reset the quern.  When she’d knelt to begin milling again, she looked up at the raven.  It was watching her every move.  “I do believe ye are the eyes of the devil himself.”  Then flipping the back of her hand at the raven she raised her voice, “There’s no soul for ye to reap here, Satan.”  Mairi scooped oats into the quern center hole and began turning the stone, only occasionally glancing up to see the raven watching.

Peter returned after Mairi had finished with her grinding and just after she had lit the supper fire.  She’d stepped out of the cottage for a breath of air after the peat smoke had filled the cottage having initially failing to escape via the chimney.  She saw Peter leave the road and head across the moor to their croft.  Mairi noticed that Peter was walking considerably slower than when he’d left that morning, even though he was now walking downhill.

“Ye look worn, Peter.”

“Aye, worn enough.”

Mairi nodded and went to the rain barrel at the corner of the cottage, took a cup hanging from a lanyard on the cottage wall and dipped it into the barrel’s water.  She then carefully delivered it to Peter who drained it in one motion.

“Duncan MacPhee was there,” said Peter, “the old fool.”

“Charity, Peter.”

“Och, Mary.  He’ll kill himself sure as the rain.  He’s too old to be working the peats.  And too old to be charitable with his bones.  He stays and helps others with their peats long after he’s worked enough for himself.”

“Aye, he’s a Godly man, he is,” said Mairi.  “Thinking of others above his own well being.”  She takes the empty cup from Peter and hangs it above the barrel.  “Like the Good Lord . . .”

“He’s a damn fool,” said Peter with a mixture of incredulity and disgust.

“Wheest!  Ye shouldna say such things.”

“Dinna wheest me, woman.  MacPhee is being a fool with his life, sure enough.  That canna be Godly.  With no life, he canna be Godly, eh!”

“Aye, Peter.  It is Godly and ye know it.”

“Och!”  Peter huffed.  He took a wood stave bucket and turned it over next to the cottage, sat down on it and leaned back against the stone wall.  He looked off toward the road that cut across the bottom third of the brae.

“MacRae was talking again today,” he said quietly.

Mairi shook her head.

“Why do ye shake yer heid, woman!?”

“More prattle on the trouble in Ireland, no doubt.”

“They won, Mairi,” Peter was forceful, then more quietly, “They won.”  He used both hands to rub his face.  “MacRae said they’re banding together and standing up to the Laird’s hired men.  And they’re winning.”  He sat forward, “MacRae says we can, too.  We should.”

Mairi let out a deep sigh, “MacRae says, MacRae says.  Is MacRae the shepherd and the rest of ye the sheep?”

Peter initially glared at Mairi, then looked away, back toward the brae. 

Mairi fiddled with her apron.  “I’m feared of the trouble that sort of talk could cause.  We’re nearly destitute now.  If we lose anymore, if we anger the Laird, I’m feared there would be no mercy.”

Peter continued to stare to the brae while Mairi looked at him.  After a moment, she went to the cottage door.  “I’ll be tending the broth.  Find Niall and Ailean.  We’ll be eating soon.”

Mairi entered the cottage and stirred the broth.  She worried about Peter.  His irreverence was becoming more and more obvious.  After the first few years of their marriage, Peter seemed to be moving further from God and the church and, at the same time, more distant to Mairi.  She thought it was as though the hard life they led had caused him to begin questioning God, like Job had done in the Old Testament, as the minister said would sometimes happen.  She and Peter would leave the kirk after Sabbath services and she would be prayerful, reflecting on the words of the minister’s sermon.  Peter, though, would be a step or two ahead, his head down, muttering to himself things like “God’s will is no the Laird’s will” or “the old fool dinna understand.”  One Sabbath she heard him mutter something that shook her to her core partly because of what he said and partly because he became very vocal, “The shepherd tends his flock.  Ha!  He dinna tend nothing.  He tramples the flock and leaves the flesh for the crows.”

Still Peter was her husband.  In front of God, she’d sworn herself to him.  It was a bond that God had consecrated and so could not be disparaged.  Abandoning the marriage never crossed her mind.  It couldn’t cross her mind.  The sacred union could only be dissolved by death.  Nevertheless, she wondered how things might be different had she chosen Robert over Peter.

She did love Peter.  She was convinced of that.  He worked hard to provide for the family all during the lean year.  He was the one who kept their minds from the growing hunger.  He was kind to her and never struck her, neither hand nor rod.  That was not his way with neither her nor the lads.  And Mairi could only recall Peter raising his voice once.  He was not the type to lose his temper which was why his increasing anger with the Laird and his talk of fighting if he must surprised her so.  He did not drink saying that he needed his wits to work the land, and he was charitable with all they had that they could offer . . . mostly Peter’s Muscle and the sweat of his brow.

Niall and Ailean were first to the table.  Mairi slapped the table causing the bowls and cups to jump and the boys stopped their horsing.  “Ye’ll get yerselves to a proper state for givin thanks to the Lord, ye will.”  Mairi gathered the bowls and filled each of the four with broth from the cauldron.  She then returned the steaming bowls to their places on the table.  She then took her station standing between the bench and the table.  Ailean noticed his mother and stood at his place, but Niall was not paying attention forcing Mairi to tug on his sleeve and say, “Niall, ye’ll stand until yer Da comes in and stis to say grace.”

As though he’d been watching from outside for the right moment, Peter stepped through the door and went straight to his place at the table.  He paused to look over the table, then with an emotionless face, he looked at Mairi and nodded.  They all sat.  Immediately, Niall and Ailean clasped their hands together and closed their eyes.  Mairi, satisfied that both boys were ready, did the same and waited for Peter to say his customary prayer at supper.  Peter, though, quietly said, “Pray silently this evening.  To yerselves.  Each in yer own way.”

Mairi looked at Peter and saw that he was not praying.  He had put his spoon in his broth and was crumbling an oatcake over the soup.  She anxiously looked at the two boys and saw they were still praying.  She was relieved. 

“Will there be enough peats for the winter?” Mairi asked without looking at Peter.

“Aye.  More than enough.”

“Lads, ye’ll need to help yer father when the time comes to bring the peats hame.”

“Can I go this year, Da?” asked Ailean.

“Aye, ye can and ye will.  Ye’ll be a man soon enough.  Time to put some meat on these bones so ye can stand for yerself,” said Peter reaching over and squeezing Ailean’s arm.

“I’m a man already,” said Niall in a bragging tone directe at Ailean.

“Nay,” retorted Ailean.

“Aye.  I am.  More than you.”

“Nay, yer a liar Niall.”

“Ailean!”  Mairi raised her voice.  “There’ll be no callin anyone in this family a liar, or ye’ll feel the rod.  Do ye understand me boy?  And Niall, there’ll be no more tormenting the lad.  No more.  Would ye expect our Lord, Jesus Christ, to act in such a way?”

The table went silent and stayed that way until Mairi broke the silence.

“Catroìna came and asked for butter this morning,” Mairi said to Peter.  “She said Tormod is going to try and sell their coo for meat.  Then they’d use the money for another coo.  It seems the one they use for butter and cream isn’t milking so well.”

“It’s no the coo,” said Peter in a low tone.

“But, Catroìna said . . . Tormod said . . .”

“Och, it’s no the coo.  It’s wha the coo eats.  They eat this rough grass doon here near the water.  It’s no good.  Have ye seen how boney the coos doon here look?  It’s no the coos, it’s wha they eat.”

Mairi considered this for a moment, then said, “If it’s the grass they’re eatin, why aren’t MacRae’s coos . . .”

Peter set down his spoon with a loud crack and interrupted, “Because MacRae sneaks his coos onto the brae where there’s better grass.”

“But, our priest says . . .”

“Aye, I know.  In the eyes of God, that would be stealing.  Well, in the eyes of God, MacRae’s stealing from the Laird.  And his coos are fat from it.”

---

[1] Oats are also known as ‘corn’ in Scotland

Morning Poem

When I drove into work today, the morning sky looked artificial, too perfect, as though it were an artist’s idealized version of what a sunrise should look like.  This was the result.

It was an Ansel Adams sky—so endless
with Van Gogh clouds punched on a canvas
glowing with Monet strokes of merlot,
cobalt and amethyst, tangerine and gold,
all disappearing in the time it takes
to reach the end of another daybreak.

Early Morning Owl – Revision

I messed with the rhythm and rhyme in this poem and am now at a point where it’s closer to where I wanted it to be in the beginning.  There may be more in it, there may not.  We’ll just have to see.

In an oak of some sort at the corner of Mclintock and Garden
a screech owl sits on a hidden branch and a robin sits above him.
A south breeze remaining from a late night storm shakes the leaves of their water
and it’s enough for the owl to think it’s raining still and it shudders
the second rain from its feather shell mimicking the leaves in the south breeze. 
The two watch as I shuffle across the street crunching gravel under their tree
until I’ve passed far enough away that they think I’ll not see in the darkness
and the owl twists its head, looks to Robin, and whispers, “Watch this.”