When she reaches me she takes several moments to recover her breath. ‘They’re coming,’ she gasps.
‘Who?’
She is still having troubling finding her voice. ‘The Sheriff-Depute and about thirty constables. And a band of men from the estate led by George. They’ve all been drinking ale at the castle to fortify themselves.’
I close my eyes and in the darkness can feel the end of everything I have known just a breath away.
‘You have to persuade the villagers to leave.’
I open my eyes and shake my head slowly. ‘They won’t.’
‘They must!’
‘This is their home, Ciorstaidh. They won’t leave it. To a man, woman and child, we were born here. Our parents and their parents, and theirs before them. Our ancestors are buried here. There can be no question of leaving.’
‘Simon, please.’ Her voice is pleading. ‘There’s no way you’ll win. The constables are armed with batons and carrying irons. And whether it’s right or wrong, they have the law on their side.’
‘Damn the law!’ I shout.
She flinches, and I see the hurt in her eyes and regret raising my voice.
She finds control from somewhere and drops her own voice to a whisper. ‘The sailing ship Heather dropped anchor this morning in Loch Glas. No matter what kind of resistance you put up, they mean to clear Baile Mhanais and put everyone aboard her.’ She pauses. ‘Please, Simon. At least try and persuade your family to leave before they get here.’
I shake my head, full of foreboding. ‘My mother’s more stubborn than any of them. And if she won’t go, then I won’t either.’
She stares at me as if trying to formulate words that will make me change my mind. Before suddenly, quite unexpectedly, she bursts into tears. I am torn between my confusion, and an urge to protect her. I step up the slope to take her in my arms. The sobs that rack her body vibrate through mine. ‘It’s all my fault,’ she says.
I slide my fingers through her hair and feel the smallness of her skull in the palm of my hand. ‘Don’t be silly. None of this is your fault. You can’t be held responsible for the actions of your father.’
She pulls back and stares at me with tear-stained eyes. ‘Yes I can. He wouldn’t be doing any of this if it wasn’t for me.’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘George saw us together. That day up on the hill, when I gave you that first hamper.’ She paused, almost as if she were afraid to go on. ‘The bastard told our father.’
I am shocked to hear her use such a word.
‘He was furious, Simon. He flew into such a rage I really thought he was going to kill me. He told me he would rather see me dead than be with a common crofter’s boy. That’s when he ordered the evictions. Baile Mhanais was only spared before because you saved my life. Now he wants to be certain there is no way I can ever see you again. That you’ll be on a boat to Canada and lost to me for ever.’ There are fresh tears and her voice quivers on the brink of breaking. ‘You’ve got to come with me. You and your mother and your sisters.’
I stare at her in disbelief. ‘With you?’ I shake my head again. ‘How? Where?’
Her breath trembles in her throat. ‘I have been locked up in my room for days, Simon. No better than a prisoner in my own house. Until this morning.’ She brushes away her tears with the backs of her hands, focused on the telling of her story. ‘I persuaded one of the maids to let me out, and while my father was downstairs with the Sheriff-Depute and the factor I went into his study. I’ve always known he kept cash in there, and I knew I needed money to get away.’
In my mind I picture her feverishly searching her father’s study, shaking with fear, and all the time listening for a footfall on the stair.
‘I found his money box in the bottom drawer of his desk. But it was locked, and I had to force it open with a ceremonial dirk that he uses as a letter opener.’ She closes her eyes momentarily, reliving the moment. ‘As soon as I did it I knew there was no going back.’ Her eyes flicker open to hold me again in their frightened gaze. ‘There was two hundred pounds in it, Simon!’
Two hundred pounds! I can barely imagine so much money, never mind holding it in my hands.
‘We can get a long way away from here with money like that. All of us. You, me, and your family.’ She implores me with her eyes, and I find it almost impossible to resist. She takes my hand in hers, and I feel how cold it is. ‘There is no way I can go home again. I have defied my father. I have stolen his money.’ She squeezes my hand until it very nearly hurts. ‘I can get a horse and trap from the stables at the castle once everyone has left. I’ll meet you at the foot of the waterfall near the old Sgargarstaigh crossroads. We can head south and get a crossing to the mainland.’
It is suffocating in the blackhouse. Fresh peat on the fire sends smoke billowing up into the roof of the fire room, stinging the eyes and burning the lungs. But it is my mother’s voice that fills the room. A voice full of sound and fury and close to hysteria while Annag and Murdag stand behind her, pale faces blanched by fear.
‘You’ve brought this on us, Sime! You and that foolish girl. God knows, her father is right. There is no place in this world for the two of you together. You belong in different parts of it. Her in hers, and you in yours. How could you have thought for one minute that you would ever be accepted into hers? Or that she would stoop to be a part of ours.’
I have never been close to my mother. Always my father’s boy. And since his death she has been strident and whining and always finding fault with me, almost as if she blames me for what happened to him. But I am patient, forever mindful of the responsibility that my father bequeathed me.
‘You were happy enough to take the food she’s been bringing us these last two weeks.’
But that only sends her spinning off into another tantrum ‘If I’d known it had come from the hands of that girl I’d never have taken it!’
And I get angry for the first time. ‘Where did you think it came from? God? What did you think it was, manna from Heaven?’ I glare at her. ‘You’re as bad as the laird. He thinks that he and his kind are better than us. And you think that we are better than them. But you know what, we’re none of us better than anyone else. We’re all God’s children, equal under Heaven, and no accident of birth can change that.’
‘Don’t you bring the name of the Lord our God into this! I’ll not have you blaspheming in this house.’
‘It’s not blasphemy. Read your Bible, you stupid woman!’ It’s out before I can stop myself, and she hits me across the side of my face with the flat of her hand, nearly knocking me from my feet.
But I stand my ground, glaring at her. My face stinging. ‘We’re leaving,’ I say. And I turn to my sisters. ‘Get your things, there’s not much time.’
My mother’s voice cuts through the smoke. ‘Don’t you move!’ Though she has never taken her eyes off me the girls know that it is them she addresses, and they freeze. ‘No son of mine is going to tell me what to do. I was born in this house, as were every one of you. And we’re not leaving it.’
Annag speaks up for the first time. But her voice is brittle and uncertain. ‘Maybe he’s right, mamaidh. If there’s forty or more of them coming to put us out we’ll not stand a chance. Maybe we should go with the laird’s girl.’
My mother swings her head around slowly, and the look she gives Annag could have turned her to stone. ‘We’re staying,’ she says, with such finality that not one of us is left in any doubt that there will be no arguing with her. ‘Now go and start collecting stones, girls. Good, fist-sized stones that’ll crack a constable’s skull.’ She turns back to me. ‘You’re a Mackenzie, boy. And Mackenzies don’t give up without a fight.’