Highland Laddie Gone

CHAPTER SEVEN

GLENCOE MOUNTAIN loomed dark against the sky. In the light of a quarter-moon, the stalls and clan tents stood as empty as a stage set of Brigadoon; but farther along the field path, in the herding meadow, the festival folk were preparing for the Hill-Sing. An hour after sunset, members of the clans began to line up for the ceremony, while the spectators spread their tartan blankets down on the meadow and hillside in preparation for the evening’s festivities.

“This is a lovely ceremony,” Elizabeth whispered to Cameron. “Watch.”

One by one, a kilted representative from each clan ran across the field, holding aloft a burning torch. When all of the clansmen stood on the field, the torches formed a Cross of St. Andrew that they held in flickering silence for a few moments, followed by wild cheering from the spectators in the darkness.

“Yes, that was quite nice,” said Cameron. “What happens next?”

Elizabeth pointed to a dark shape in the center of the field. As the cheering died away, each torchbearer laid his firebrand on the stack of logs, igniting it into a roaring blaze. From the shadows a tenor voice sang the first line of “Annie Laurie,” and one by one other voices joined in from all sections of the field.

“Do you know this one?” whispered Elizabeth.

“What do you mean do I know this one?” Cameron hissed back. “It’s a Scottish song! We bloody wrote it! Of course I-Well, I’m a bit hazy on the verses, though.”

Elizabeth joined in for the chorus. By the time they had sung it twice, she had noticed that “Cameron Dawson” had almost the same number of syllables as “Annie Laurie” and while she was careful to sing the words correctly, there was unusual fervor in her rendering of “lay me doon and dee.”

Cameron began to feel relaxed for the first time all day. The soothing sounds of a familiar song, mingled with the darkness and the beauty of the mountain setting, made him feel that the trip hadn’t been such a waste after all. He smiled at Elizabeth, and reached down to pet the sleeping bobcat. Somehow it was all beginning to make sense.

Jimmy McGowan stared into the flames of the bonfire, thankful that his parents were not around to foist marshmallows off on him. Beside him, Lachlan Forsyth was leaning forward and swinging on his cane in time to the music.

“That’s the only good song they’ll sing tonight, lad,” he roared as the crowd struggled with the high note with varying degrees of success. “From here on out, they won’t half come out with some rubbish.”

A voice across the meadow began to bellow: “You take the high road, and I’ll take the low road!”

“I’ve heard this one,” said Jimmy.

“Sung just like that, I’ll wager,” growled Lachlan. “Folk should nae sing a tune if they haven’t any idea what it means. Listen to them belting it out like they were singing about a bloody hiking competition!”

“And I’ll be in Scotland before ya!” roared the crowd. “But me and my true love will never meet again…”

“What does it mean?” asked Jimmy.

“It’s a Jacobite song from the ’45,” Lachlan said. “When Charles Edward Stuart-”

Jimmy recognized the name. “Bonnie Prince Charlie?”

The old man grunted. “He was nae bonny, and nae much of a prince, but he was a right bloody Charlie. Anyway, he and his Highland army invaded England, and this song is about a Scottish soldier dying. He says for his mates to take the high road-the highway-back to Scotland, and he’ll take the low road, which is the way the fairy folk travel-in a twinkling of an eye.”

Jimmy nodded. “So he’ll be in Scotland before them because he’s using magic.”

“Aye, but it won’t profit him any to get there, because he’ll not be meeting his sweetheart again, being dead like he is.”

“On the bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond…”

Jimmy was still thinking about the prince. His parents were always bragging about a McGowan ancestor who’d fought with him, and how Jimmy ought to be proud to wear a kilt in his honor. “My parents want me to get a kilt,” he told Lachlan. He explained about his Jacobite ancestor, and the old man listened, shaking his head. “Do you think I ought to let them buy me one?”

The voices on the hill had begun to croon “The Bluebells of Scotland.”

“Ah, your braw McGowan ancestor,” sighed Lachlan. “Let me tell you how it was, laddie, as if you was him.”

James Stuart McGowan pictured himself astride a white horse, wearing the red and black Gow tartan, sword at his side. Too cool, he thought.

“April 16, 1746… and the Highland army under his right bloody Charlie is waiting to meet the English at Culloden Field. McGowan. He wasn’t a clan chief. Nobody very important. Say he was a subtenant. So part of the rent for his little piece of land was that he had to go and fight when he was told to, or else have his house burned over his head and his one cow killed. He might have been quite young-say fourteen.”

“Did he have a horse?” asked Jimmy.

Lachlan laughed. “He did not. And nae food, either. They left the food back in Inverness by mistake. And brought the wrong size ammunition for the cannon, as well.”

“What about a sword?”

“Oh, aye, a bloody great claymore ye canna lift. And waiting for you across the field is a well-fed English army led by the Duke of Cumberland-Stinking Billy, he was-and they’ve got loaded muskets, bayonets, and cannons with grapeshot.”

Jimmy shivered. “Swords against muskets and bayonets?”

“Aye. So there you are, McGowan of the prince’s army. You’re cold and ragged; you have nae eaten for three days n’er slept for twa, and you did nae want to come and fight in the first place, but the laird said you had to. And you’re holding a sword ye canna lift while looking down the barrel of a bloody musket, or at an army of grinning faces who’ll bayonet you on the field if you don’t die during the battle. Aye. Sounds a treat, doesn’t it, Jimmy? And McGowan of Clan Gow is thinking tae himself: ‘If I can stay alive long enough to get off this sodding field, I’ll get me out of Scotland and ship out to whatever godforsaken colony will have me, and please God that I never see that stinking tartan of my landlord’s ever again.’ ”

“What a stupid war,” grumbled Jimmy.

“Well, don’t go blaming McGowan for it. Sometimes I think of the likes of him, though, in some celestial distillery looking down on his descendants parading around in that great bloody tartan that got him killed, and I think how fash’t he’d be with you.”

“Then why do people make such a big deal out of it?” asked Jimmy.

“Because people like to think that glory and honor existed in the world somewhere, sometime, and that it has aught to do with them.” He sighed. “I don’t suppose they do any harm, though.”

Jimmy didn’t answer. He was listening to the wail of a bagpipe somewhere in the distance, and trying to imagine how it would feel to walk into the crossfire of an army.

“I always cry at this one,” said Elizabeth, dabbing her eyes. “ ‘The Bluebells of Scotland.’ When they say, ‘O where and o where is your Highland laddie gone?’ I always think he must have been killed in the war.”

“War?”

“Oh, yes. In Charlie’s year, when the Highland clans fought the English. For Bonnie Prince Charlie.”

“Is he popular over here? I saw Princess Diana in a parade once.”

“You don’t mean you’ve never heard of Charles Edward Stuart?” said Elizabeth menacingly.

“Oh, him. Of course I have. I think I had to do a report on him once.”

“Isn’t it sad that the Rising failed?” sighed Elizabeth. “If only they hadn’t had such bad luck-”

“Yes, but then we’d be out of the United Kingdom,” said Cameron reasonably. “And that would simply kill the economy. It would set us back forty years industrially.”

Elizabeth shook her head. She couldn’t see what economics could have to do with such a just and noble cause as the Stuarts’ right to the throne. Men had such odd ways of looking at things. But, she thought, snuggling closer to Cameron, it didn’t seem worth fighting about this late in the day.

As a student of theatre, Geoffrey thought that the Hill-Sing had the most dramatic potential of anything that had happened thus far. He wondered if he could incorporate something similar into the second act of Brigadoon. He was just trying to decide what kind of lighting it would take to get the shadows right, when a single voice began a new song.

“Flower of Scotland, when will we see your like again…”

Geoffrey noticed that several people about the field were struggling to their feet and standing at attention. Must be another of their rituals, he thought. Might as well go along with it. Geoffrey stood respectfully, straining to catch the words. Something about “proud Edward’s army.” History, he supposed.

By the time the singers had reached the last verse, most of the people at the Hill-Sing were standing, out of some obscure instinct to follow the leader.

“Those days are passed now, And in the past they must remain…” “They’re dead right about that,” muttered Lachlan Forsyth in another part of the field.

Near the bonfire, Jerry Buchanan wiped a tear from under his glasses and sang on lustily. So many people standing-the Cause was growing.

The last notes of the Corries’ song were still hanging in the air when a stocky man in a kilt eased in beside Geoffrey and said in a solemn undertone: “Stands Scotland where it did?”

Hello! thought Geoffrey. Another theatre person. Act four, scene three. In his best Shakespearean tones, Geoffrey rounded on the man and proclaimed: “Alas, poor country! Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot be called our mother but our grave…” Then, dropping his pose, he said cheerfully, “There! We’ve quoted from the Scottish tragedy and we’re both damned. Quick-turn round three times and swear!”

The man shook his head. “You must outrank me, friend,” he drawled. “I just know the ordinary password. Anyhow, I’d like to invite you to a little get-together some of us are having.”

“A party?” asked Geoffrey hopefully.

“Yep. You don’t even have to bring your own bottle, seeing as how you’re one of the big-shots. Follow me, sir.”

The mention of bottles combined with Geoffrey’s natural curiosity to make him follow the man without further discussion. This is interesting, he thought. He managed to resist the temptation to say, “Lay on, Macduff.” His new acquaintance led him to a large motor home in the camping area. Inside, half a dozen men in different plaids were seated at a plastic table examining a map of Scotland.

“The boss will be here soon,” said a man in a green kilt and a cowboy hat. “He had a kid with him, and he’s waiting for the parents to come back.”

“I found another one of the higher-ups,” said the stocky man, pointing to Geoffrey. “He’s an American, too. Don’t it beat all? I ran across a real Scotsman at the clan tents today, and he didn’t know jackshit about any of this.”

“No, you mustn’t mention this to him,” said Geoffrey quickly. “He’s M15-British secret service.” He was most gratified by his audience’s startled gasps. This is like improvisational drama, Geoffrey thought cheerfully. I wonder what I’ll say next.

“Should we get him out of the way?” asked one of the men in carefully neutral tones.

Whoops-dangerous ad-libbing, thought Geoffrey. I don’t want to get Cameron mugged by this bunch of… whatever they are. “Absolutely not,” he said solemnly. “That would attract too much attention. It’s best to ignore him. Do you suppose I could have a drink?”

“Well… we usually wait for the boss, but seeing as how you’re obviously somebody important…” He indicated Geoffrey’s Royal Stewart necktie.

One of the men got out plastic cups and a bottle of Drambuie, while another set a small bowl of water in the center of the table. When the cups had been filled, the men held them above the water bowl. A little nervously, Geoffrey followed suit.

“To the king over the water!” they intoned.

Geoffrey, who had spent the last few moments contemplating his necktie and reading the back of the Drambuie bottle, had begun to make sense of things. Charles Stuart again, he thought, noting that the Bonnie Prince was credited with the original recipe of the liqueur. A man of many talents, Geoffrey decided: bootlegger, female impersonator-it seemed churlish to quibble about his generalship. Besides, he had been dead for nearly two centuries; but not, apparently, resting in peace. Surely these clowns couldn’t be contemplating the overthrow of the British government.

“And success to the Scottish Republican Army!” cried the man in the cowboy hat.

Or could they?

Lachlan Forsyth appeared in the doorway, his genial smile fading a bit when he noticed Geoffrey among the kilted conspirators. “Evening, lads,” he said softly.

“Hello,” said Geoffrey quickly. “I think you’ve done a splendid job with the recruits here.”

Lachlan looked at him speculatively. “Oh, aye?”

“Even so, I haven’t disclosed any of the military strategy. I feel that the fewer people who know, the better, don’t you?”

Lachlan nodded. “Perhaps we might have a wee talk later,” he murmured, easing into a chair.

“Oh, absolutely. How about a drink? A little Scotch, perhaps?” Geoffrey was particularly good at parties.

The Hill-Sing bonfire had burned low, and many of the festival participants had picked up their blankets and straggled off toward the campgrounds. Elizabeth, who did not want the evening to end, was giving her best imitation of someone who was still awake.

She sighed. “I love Scottish folk music.”

Since the last song had been “Home on the Range,” Cameron was at a loss for a reply. “It’s after midnight,” he said softly. “Do you think your cousin will be worried about you?”

Elizabeth took a deep breath. “No,” she said. “But having them drag the river for my body would be his idea of a joke. Perhaps we’d better get back.”

“The stars are very nice up here,” Cameron remarked as they walked along the trail. “You can see a lot more of them here than you can in Edinburgh.”

Elizabeth stifled a yawn. “I’d rather see them in Edinburgh.”

“Just don’t expect it to be anything like this,” Cameron warned her. “Over there, if you see someone walking down Princes Street in a full kilt, it’s bound to be an American.”

“So, what is a Scot?” mused Elizabeth sleepily. “Someone with a pedigree back to the Duke of Some body or someone who knows all the dances and songs and customs? Or somebody like you, who doesn’t know any of it, but who has a passport to prove he’s Scottish?” She looked up at him for an answer and promptly tripped over a rock.

“I don’t know,” said Cameron, catching her. “But people who get philosophical at one in the morning while stumbling over rocks are always assumed to be Irish.”

“Close enough,” murmured Elizabeth, suiting her actions to the words; and Cameron had one brief flash of anxiety before he discovered that, despite their other cultural aberrations, Americans were perfectly sound in the matter of kissing.

Some time later, they reached the porch of Elizabeth’s cabin; all was dark. “Good night,” said Cameron, kissing the Maid of the Cat. “Thanks for a lovely evening.”

Elizabeth smiled. “Be thankful I remembered where the rock was.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” laughed Cameron as he started down the steps. “I’d better-good God!”

“What’s wrong, Cameron?”

“I haven’t seen the Carsons since four o’clock. I have no idea where I’m going.”

Elizabeth took a deep breath. “You can stay here,” she said in a small voice.

Cameron hesitated. “Well, I suppose I could, if you wouldn’t mind. Is there a couch or something?” he asked, following her in.

Quite amazingly dim, thought Elizabeth. I wonder, do unicorns follow him at a respectful distance?

Cameron flipped on the light. “No couch. Ah, is that Geoffrey’s room? Perhaps he wouldn’t mind?” Before Elizabeth could phrase her opinion that Cameron would be safer with her, he had tried the bedroom door and found it locked. “Should we try to wake him?”

Elizabeth picked up an empty Drambuie bottle from under the chair. “Not a hope,” she said cheerfully.

“Oh! Well, there’s always the floor. Do you have an extra blanket?”

“I don’t take up much room,” said Elizabeth softly, pointing to the double bed.

Steady on, Cameron told himself. This country was getting more interesting by the minute. “Right,” he said aloud. “Is that the bathroom? I’m going to take a shower, Be right back.”

“I think there are towels in there,” Elizabeth said.

I’ll probably be shaking too hard to need one, Cameron thought, closing the door behind him. Twenty minutes later he emerged from the bathroom wearing his khaki shorts (discretion being the better part of valor) to find the bedroom dark. The light from the bathroom illuminated the bed, though, so that he could see Elizabeth snuggled against her pillow, still dressed, sound asleep. On the other side of the bed sprawled Cluny the bobcat, watching Cameron with unblinking yellow eyes. Cameron didn’t feel like making its day: he was too tired. He picked up the small tartan blanket they’d used at the Hill-Sing, flipped out the bathroom light, and curled up in the armchair beside the dresser. Considering how the day had gone, he didn’t know why he’d expected anything else. Selkies, sea serpents, loonies asking where Scot land stood. This wasn’t a country, it was a bloody roller-coaster.

From the darkness a drowsy voice said, “Are you going to stay in that damned chair all night?”