The Desperate Journey (4 page)

Kirsty burst into tears, but Davie stood manfully, his chin upthrust, his legs firmly braced, his whole body expressing defiance and resolution. “Do not weep, Mother! We will build a new house, you will see.”

“But where, Davie, where?” his mother asked in despair. “The factor would just pull it down again.”

“No, not here!” Davie told her. “There will be a place found for us, Mother, you said so. My father will build another house and I will help him.”

Kate Murray looked at the boy. “I believe you will, Davie.” A spot of rain fell on her hand. She sprang to her feet. “What shall we do? All our goods lying around and the rain beginning to fall. Where can we find shelter?” She looked wildly at the smoking ruin that had been their home. Davie was stirred to action. “There is still the cart,” he said. “They have not damaged that. If we push it against the wall there, it will make a kind of roof and protect the bedding.”

They both helped him to push the cart over to an angle of the wall, so that it formed a roof with the two walls for additional shelter. Under it they placed the mattresses and bedding. Kirsty rescued the meal chest and was glad to find that the good hasp on it had saved the meal from being spilled. Kate collected her pots and pans, such as had not been trodden underfoot by the factor’s men.

A clucking sound came from the kailyard. “Listen!” Kirsty said, her finger raised. “That’s Snowdrop, the white hen. She always makes a carry-on when she’s laid an egg. I’ll go see what I can find of the other eggs too.”

She came back with three eggs in her apron. “Look what I’ve found! At least we shall not starve.”

“I will light a fire of twigs,” Davie said, “Then maybe you could manage to cook the eggs for us, Mother. I – I’m beginning to feel hungry.” He looked half-ashamed at this admission, as he cast a
glance at the smouldering house.

“Aye, there’s fire enough there to last us all our days,” his mother sighed, but she set about the work of preparing a meal. It helped her to greater calmness.

“Let us collect what furniture we can into a heap against the wall so it will be sheltered a little and not scattered about the place,” Davie suggested to Kirsty. When they had finished, the meal was ready and the rain had stopped. They drew chairs round the scrubbed table in the farmyard. Suddenly Davie said, “I like it, eating under the open sky.”

Kate Murray shook her head, but she had to smile at the power of youth to find enjoyment even out of misfortune.

“Aye, fine you like it now while the sun is shining, but wait till the bitter winds blow and the snow comes like white smoke over the green hills. Then you will want a roof over your head and a warm seat by the fire. Where shall we find that?”

“Think you my father will build this house again?” Davie nodded towards the smoking ruin.

Kate Murray shook her head. “Patrick Sellar would come again and destroy it again as soon as it was built. No, Davie, we must go from here and leave Culmailie for ever.”

“Where shall we go?” Kirsty lifted her troubled little face.

“I do not know. Your father has talked of many places, Edinburgh, Dundee, Glasgow. He says there is work for people in the cities.”

“What is a city like?” Kirsty wanted to know.

“There are many, many houses.”

“More than in Golspie or Dornoch?”

“Oh, yes! Your father has heard tell there are so many streets you could get lost in them.”

Davie whistled. There was something new and exciting in the thought of a city. “Will there be rows and rows of crofts?”

Kate shook her head. “No. Your father says many of the houses are built on top of each other, without fields or gardens round
them.”

Kirsty puckered up her brows. “I wonder if I will like that? When will my father be coming?” she sighed.

“We do not know, lassie.” Kate stared down the road too. “It may be tonight, or the next night, or the next –” Her voice trailed away unhappily.

When night fell they huddled under the blankets, the cart giving them shelter. Davie had lighted the lantern and set it beside them. There was still a glow of red from the embers of the burned house.

“Your father aye said a prayer. Think you that you could say a word in his place, Davie? Maybe we could sing a psalm afterwards,” Kate said.

“God bless us and keep us this night and always, and bring my father back soon,” Davie said simply. Then he lifted his voice and sang, “The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want.” The others joined in, Kate’s voice wavering with grief, and Kirsty’s piping treble. The sound of their voices reached James Murray as he rounded the hill on his horse and saw the glowing embers of what had once been his home. For a moment he reined his horse in, shocked with surprise, then he urged him forward up the hill.

“There’s Father!” Kirsty cried, as she heard the horse’s hoofs. They broke off singing and scrambled from under the cart, Davie waving the lantern.

“Are you safe, Kate? Are you and the bairns safe?” James cried in a frenzy as he flung himself from the horse.

“Aye, James, we’re safe and sound, but oh! James, your house is gone!” Kate flew to her husband and broke into a torrent of sobs, grief she had bottled up all day.

“Steady, lass, steady! Here, take the horse, Davie!” James Murray’s arms went round his wife.

“Your mother, James? Is she – Is she –?”

“Aye, lass, she’s gone. She went peacefully in her sleep, but not before she knew I was there and she spoke to me. I think it was a
comfort to her to have me there with John. But to think that all this should happen to you while I was away!” James’ face grew dark as he stared at the improvised shelter and the pitiful heap of his household goods.

“Did Patrick Sellar do this to my house?”

“Aye, he did! He put fire to the thatch and mocked at us as it burned.”

“You gave him my letter, Davie?” Murray asked sharply.

“Aye, Father, he had it as soon as he came, and when he had read it he flung it to the ground.”

James Murray clenched his fist and black anger rose in him. “I will go to Dunrobin and deal with Patrick Sellar!”

Kate held him by the arm. “No, James, stay with us now. If you lay a finger on him, Sellar will have you clapped in gaol. Have we not suffered enough? Must we lose you too?”

“Don’t go away, Father! Don’t leave us!” Kirsty pleaded.

“What shall I do with the horse? There is no stable for him now,” Davie asked.

The practical need for his help put the thought of revenge out of James’s mind. Though his home had gone, his family remained, and it was for him to look after them. “Dinna fash yourself, my lass,” he said to his wife. “I’ll bide here wi’ you. Turn the horse loose in the pasture, Davie. He’ll take no harm there.”

With the help of the lantern, Kate searched among her household crocks and found some oatcake and cheese which she brought to James.

“You’ll be hungry after your ride,” she said. As James ate, she asked him, “What shall we do? It’s plain we canna bide here.”

James looked thoughtful for a minute. “Tomorrow we will set out on our travels just as soon as we have packed our goods in the cart. We will go first to Dornoch. John will find someone to buy our table and chairs and the cupboards. In his work as a joiner, he knows the people who might buy.”

“It hurts me to the heart to part wi’ the things I’ve cared for so long,” Kate said, “but we canna carry them wi’ us everywhere, and John will get us the best price he can.”

“And after Dornoch? Where will we go then, Father?” Davie leaned forward eagerly.

James passed his hand across his eyes. “I have heard tell there is work in Glasgow at the cotton mills there. It is different from the work we have done in Culmailie, but we must be prepared for changes. We have to earn our living.”

Davie’s eyes began to sparkle. “Glasgow! A great city! How soon shall we start, Father?”

“Eager you are, son!” Kate smiled sadly. “For you it is a new life, and to bairns any change is exciting, but for me I leave a good part of my life behind me here in Culmailie.”

“No, no, my lass! There’s plenty before us yet. We’ll find joy in a new life, you’ll see!”

“You are as much of a lad looking for new things as Davie is,” his wife chided him with a smile.

“How shall we get to Glasgow?” Kirsty asked.

“I have not thought that out yet. There are ships go down the west coast. Maybe we could get one from Ullapool. I have heard the drovers who come to Dornoch Fair speak of Ullapool, but we should have to make our way through the mountains first.”

“Would we have to walk all the way?” Kirsty asked.

“Weel, maybe quite a bit o’ it, but you can be having a wee ride on the horse or cart when you are weary.”

“Oh, shall we be taking the cart?” Kirsty brightened up at this news.

“Surely! How else do you think we shall carry our blankets and cooking pots? We will start in the morning.”

“Then we’d better try to get our sleep now, if we’re to be up wi’ the sun,” Kate counselled.

The next day, as soon as it was light, the family was stirring. Davie quickly built a fire of twigs and pieces of wood from the demolished house, then Kate cooked oatmeal porridge over it for their breakfast. Afterwards, while Kate and Kirsty packed up such household goods as they were taking with them to Glasgow, Davie and his father loaded the cart with the furniture they were to leave at Dornoch. At last all the goods were lashed securely on to the cart, and Davie had brought the sheepskin bag of money dripping from the burn.

“Are you ready, Kate?” James asked his wife quietly.

“Aye, I’m ready, James.” She gave a quick look at the blackened walls of what had been her clean bright home, then said with a sigh, “Farewell, Culmailie! We may never see you again.”

Kirsty began to weep a little, and Davie put out a hand to comfort her. His eyes looked straight ahead to the road before them. “Do not look back, Kirsty,” he whispered. “It is better to look forward. Great things there will be for us yet, you will see!”

On the way to Dornoch they called at the cottage of a fisherman who wished to purchase James Murray’s boat for his son. A bargain was struck and another small sum was added to the sheep-skin bag of silver.

“It is not much,” James said to his wife, “but we cannot take the boat with us, and William Blair has been honest enough to pay for it when he might easily have taken it for his own once we were away.”

“Shall we have a boat in Glasgow, Father?” Davie asked. He always loved the evenings spent fishing with his father.

James Murray drew his brows together. “True, there is a river runs through Glasgow, the River Clyde, but I do not think it will be possible for us to have a boat on it. There are far too many people in Glasgow to have boats.”

“Are there a hundred people, perhaps?” Kirsty asked.

Her question told James that the children had no idea of what life in the city would be like. “Not hundreds, but thousands,” he replied.

“Thousands?” Kirsty’s eyes grew wide. “How ever shall we get to know them all?”

“You never will. There are all kinds of people in Glasgow, some good, some bad. When we get there, we must keep ourselves to ourselves for a time,” his Highland caution made him say.

At Dornoch they left their furniture with John Murray to sell it for them.

“Aye, James, I’ll do my best for ye,” he promised. “I’ll send ye the
money for the furniture by the hand o’ someone I can trust, once it’s sold.”

“Thank you, John. And send us word now and again what is happening at Dornoch and about the coast, will ye?”

“I’ll do that, James. Good luck to ye, lad!”

The brothers parted sorrowfully, then James Murray and his family set out on their way across Scotland. This time there was room for them all to ride on the cart. They took the road that ran alongside Dornoch Firth to Invershin.

Spring was early and warm that year, and the broom and the wild rhododendrons vied with each other in splashes of gleaming yellow and gay purples and crimsons all along the banks of the winding Kyle River. Sometimes Davie and Kirsty got down and ran barefoot over the soft grass of the drove road and played hide and seek among the bushes that bordered the river. Often they ran well ahead of the cart.

“I’ll race you to the top of that hill!” Davie challenged Kirsty.

“It’s no’ fair! You’ve got a start of me!” she objected.

Laughing and panting, stooping to the steep rise, they made their way up behind the broom bushes to the summit of the hill that overlooked the drove road. Davie reached the top first and looked back along the track they had followed.

“I can see the cart!” he cried to Kirsty, then he stood very still, looking hard. Round the bend behind the cart had come a gipsy family. Two men on ponies rode beside the donkey cart which carried their wives. One man was pointing with his whip at James Murray’s cart ahead of them, climbing the road up the hill. They said something quickly to the women, who reined in the donkey and stopped. The two men urged their horses forward along the grassy road. Davie watched them intently.

“What is it, Davie? What are you staring at?” Kirsty asked as she reached his side. “Those two men! Tinkers they are! Why have they stopped the cart and are going by themselves after my
father?”

“Oh, Davie, you don’t think they mean him any harm?” Kirsty looked apprehensive.

“I don’t know, Kirsty. Watch them with me, but keep well out of sight behind the bushes.”

“Has Father seen them, do you think?”

Davie shook his head. “He has never looked round, and he would not hear their hoofs on the soft turf above the creaking of our cart – not till they got close to him.”

“Look! The men are parting company! One is moving behind the bushes on one side of the road and the other has gone into the wood down by the river,” Kirsty exclaimed.

“They’re taking cover so as to ride ahead of Father and surprise him at the next bend,” Davie guessed in an instant. “Kirsty, they’re up to no good!”

“Oh, Davie, what will they do?”

“Steal our bag of money and our goods and take away the horse, maybe.”

“What shall we do? What shall we do?”

Davie was frightened too, but he knew the need for quick action. He looked desperately along the road in the direction his father would travel. There was a cloud of dust approaching a ford over the river, a moving, shifting cloud of dust.

“Kirsty, look! There’s a drove of cattle coming along the road. There’ll be drovers with it, maybe with horses. Run as fast as you can across the hill to them and ask them to come and help my father.”

“What will you do?”

“Go fight beside him, of course! Run, Kirsty!”

Kirsty needed no second bidding. Soon she was coursing down the hill like a young hare towards the dusty cloud.

Davie slithered down the hill in the opposite direction, running fast where the bushes gave him enough cover, sinking on his hands
and knees where the bushes were not high enough to conceal him. He kept an eye on the two tinkers. They were a quarter of a mile ahead of his father now, waiting behind trees where the road took a bend at the foot of the hill. Davie plunged downward to the point of meeting.

The cart rattled on. As it rounded the bend, the two horsemen converged on James Murray.

“Stop your cart!”

James drew rein and looked from one to the other of them. “What do you want?” he asked sharply.

One man drew a thick stick from under his coat, while the other flicked his whip ominously. Kate Murray uttered a startled cry.

“Do as you are told and we will do you no hurt,” the man with the bludgeon said. “Have you got money?”

“If I had I would not give it to you,” James said defiantly, gathering up his reins and beginning to urge on his horse. The whip lash curled round his wrist, forcing him to drop the rein.

“I can do better than that,” the man with the whip jeered at him. “Next time it will be your face. Watch out for your eyes!”

“Now will you give up your money and the horse and your gear?” the man with the bludgeon asked. “We will leave you the cart and maybe a couple of blankets if you will give us no trouble.”

James hesitated, loathe to give up his possessions tamely, but knowing he was no match for two men. Kate cried, “Take what you will off the cart, but let my man alone!”

“The money first! I know you crofters. You’ll have money with you from selling your goods. You always have!” the gipsy with the stick mocked them.

Still James made no move to give up his possessions. The elder man moved towards him on his horse. “Out with the bag now, or do we have to search you? We shall not be tender with you,” he threatened.

Davie had reached a bush some twenty yards away. He felt in his pocket and drew out his catapult made of a forked twig and a piece of sheep gut. He placed a stone in the catapult and took aim. The man with the whip raised it threateningly. Davie let fly. He had no time to take aim accurately; instead of hitting the man as he intended, the stone caught the horse on the shoulder. The startled animal reared high, pawing the air. The gipsy was caught off balance and flung from the saddle. The whip went spinning into the bushes as he fell on the road. His horse whinnied and galloped away as if the devil were pursuing him. This left only the man with the cudgel, and he, amazed at his accomplice’s mishap, had his attention distracted for a moment. This gave Davie the chance he needed to take more careful aim. He bent back the twig ready. The second gipsy lifted his stick, meaning to bring it down on James Murray’s head. Straight as an arrow the stone sped this time and hit the man’s wrist a sickening crack. He yelled with pain and dropped the cudgel. Davie could not restrain a shout of triumph. “Hold on, Father! I’m with you!”

The first gipsy had staggered to his feet again. He snatched up the whip and went tearing among the bushes in Davie’s direction, brandishing the whip. Davie, quick as a hare, bent and doubled among the bushes, trying to avoid the wicked curling lash.

James jumped from the cart and pounced on the cudgel the second gipsy had dropped. The gipsy tried to make his horse rear to trample on James, but it was plain from the way he handled the bridle that his wrist was broken. He kicked out at James and yelled to the other gipsy, “Come here with that whip, Matt! It’s the man we want! He’s got the money!”

Only once did Matt strike at James with the whip, however. Frightened though she was, Kate was not going to stand by doing nothing while her husband and son were attacked.

“A weapon? Where’s a weapon?” she cried, searching feverishly among the goods in the cart. The iron saucepan in which she had
cooked the morning’s hurried breakfast came to her hand, still half full of porridge. She stood up in the cart and brought the saucepan down on Matt’s head with all the force she could wield. It cracked down upon his skull, stunning him, and the porridge streamed out over Matt’s head and eyes.

“Well done, Mother!” Davie yelled. Kate leaped from the cart and snatched up the whip.

“Now you shall have a taste of your own medicine!” she cried, and ran at the man still sitting on the horse and lashed at him. One blow of the whip was sufficient. The second gipsy dug his spurs into his horse and shot off down the road. James ran to Davie, who was struggling with the fighting, kicking man on the ground.

In the excitement none of them heard the thud of hoofs coming along the drove road from the opposite direction. Two men galloped up, one of them with Kirsty clinging to him, her arms round his waist. They reined in sharply.

“What’s going on here?” the elder man cried. James spun round, still keeping his grip on Matt the gipsy.

“Oh, it’s you, Donald Rae!” he cried in relief at the sight of the drover, whom he knew well. “We’ve been set upon by a couple of tinker vagabonds. Here’s one of the rascals!”

Donald Rae laughed out loud at the sight of Kate Murray with the whip in her hand, and the gipsy cowering before her on the ground.

“Your wee lassie here said ye were in desperate need o’ help, but it seems to me ye’ve no’ been managing badly on your ain. Where’s the other rascal?”

James pointed away down the road where the second gipsy was urging his horse along as fast as it would go. Donald chuckled again and peered at the recumbent form of Matt. He got down from his horse and lifted Kirsty down too.

“Let’s take a look at this fellow.” He stooped over Matt. “Guid sakes, man! Ye’re crowned wi’ porridge!” He grinned at the sight
of the porridge pot lying beside Matt on the ground. “Matt McFie! I could scarcely recognise you!”

Matt McFie struggled to his feet, muttering curses under his breath and scraping the porridge from his face.

“Weel, weel!” the old drover exclaimed. “Up to your wicked tricks, are ye? I was hearing there was a warrant out for your arrest up to Ullapool. Highway robbery, is it no’? Ye ken what the penalty is for that?” Donald Rae stroked his throat moaningly. Matt McFie went pale. He well knew that death by hanging was the judgement on a convicted highway robber.

“Aye, ye’d be weel advised no’ to go to Ullapool,” Donald Rae told him. “Maybe, though, I should tak’ ye wi’ me to the cattle fair at the Muir of Ord. I could hand ye over to the justices there, for this time ye’ve been caught i’ the very act.”

Suddenly McFie twisted round like an eel and escaped from James Murray’s hands. He went away leaping like a roe deer over the low bushes and growing heather, streaking after the other gipsy on his horse, shouting, “Wait for me! Wait for me!” to him. The second man paused, looked round to see if he were being pursued, then reined in his horse. Matt McFie leaped up behind him, clinging to his waist, and then the horse galloped off in the direction of the gipsy women waiting with the donkey and cart.

“Did they steal anything from ye, James?” the old drover asked.

“No, Donald, thanks be that they did not, though had it no’ been for Davie here wi’ his catapult and Kate wi’ her porridge pot, things might no’ have gone so weel for us. I was right glad to see you, man.”

“It wasna much I did for ye,” Donald said. He began to laugh. “I must say, Mistress Murray, ye’re a grand hand in a fight! Oh, the way ye wielded yon porridge pot! We were just in time to see it. Wumman, they should enlist ye in the British army to fight the French!”

They all laughed heartily, as much that the strain was over as at
the joke.

“Tell me though, James, what ye’re doing so far from Golspie and journeying west?”

The two men had often met at cattle fairs in the east and knew each other well. James recounted to Donald how he had been turned out from his croft and the house fired.

“Aye, ‘tis happening all up and down the Highlands,” Donald commented. “But where are you going with your family, James?”

“To find a ship that will take us to Glasgow. I hear there is plenty of work to be had there.”

Donald shook his head a little sadly. “True, true! But it is work under a roof from dawn till night, mostly wi’ the clatter o’ machinery round ye. How will ye like that after the quiet peace o’ the hills, man?”

“If there are no crofts for us, then we must do something to earn our bread,” James said bitterly.

Just then the cattle came ambling round the bend, cropping the grass of the roadside as they came along.

“We’ll have to leave you now, James.” Donald Rae shook hands solemnly all round, adding with a twinkle at Kate, “Ye’re a bonnie fetcher, mistress, I’d rather have ye on my side than against me.”

They parted company with many backward glances and waving of the hands.

That night the Murrays slept in the barn of the inn at Altnacealgach. The next day when they took their leave of the landlord he asked, “Ullapool, is it?”

“Aye, we are looking for a ship to Glasgow.”

The landlord shook his head doubtfully. “If ye find no ship,” he said, “there is an honest fisherman, Patrick Cameron, who might be able to help ye. Look for him.”

The day’s journey was uneventful. They saw no more gipsies as they followed the drove road. It led them by a river into which rushing streams poured down from the hills on either side. The
path began to mount higher and higher to the gap between the mountains of Cul Mor and Cnoc an Sassunnach. The road grew rough and stony and James Murray had to stop now and again to rest the horse. All around them was the sound of many waters. At last they reached the top of the pass. Davie stood, his hand shading his eyes, peering at the dozen or more lochans that glinted in the sun and the great peaks that swept upward to the sky in the west, and his heart lifted with them.