A Better Place Read online

  “He has ye brown eyes Murdo and ye father’s strong chin,” remarks Annie, “I think we should call him Murdo too.”

  “Aye, it would make me a proud man if we do just that.”

  Chapter Two

  Coigach, Scottish Highlands 1880

  “I cannae pay! I willnae pay! We improve the land and the croft and all they do is increase the rents on us.”

  “There be no arguing with ye on that Murdo, but what can we do?” questions Roderick as the extended Campbell family debate the issues of the impending visit by the factor. Roderick knows what he is going to do but is waiting for the right moment to tell them.

  The Sunday gathering is meant to be a celebration with family following the birth of Murdo and Annie’s fourth child, a daughter called Ann. Ann has been christened at the weekly church service this morning and the extended Campbell family travel back to Achadh’ a Braigh to enjoy a meal and an afternoon of fellowship together.

  Fortunately for Annie one of the sheep has broken its leg and needs to be killed so there is a special piece of mutton for the meal. They cook it in Jessie’s large cauldron, which hangs from the ceiling over the central fire. Last year had been a good one for crops and so there are potatoes and turnips to add to the broth as well. It is a fine meal and everyone is well sated.

  The meal finished, the giggling children run outside to chase the dogs and play hide and seek in the fields. The adults struggle to be so lighthearted. Annie and Jessie gather the wooden plates and animal-horn spoons to be washed later. Sitting on low stools around the fire, the conversation turns back to the plight, which affects all of the crofters in the Highlands of Scotland.

  “Ye cannae let them win. Back in the 1850s when they tried to evict us, we ne’er gave up,” Great-Grandma Mary remembers with a passion.

  She had been living at Badenscaille at the time. Widowed, with five adult children to feed, Mary was determined, like the other crofters in the village, that she was not going to be evicted from the croft they had occupied for the last two decades. The Marquis and Marchioness of Stafford, who were told to make their income from the Cromartie Estates, of which Coigach was one, were trying to evict the lotters at Badenscaille and move them two miles away to smaller crofts by the sea near Badentarbat. The sheriff and factor had travelled from Ullapool by boat to serve the eviction notices.

  “We met them at the shore, all 100 of us. We were civil to the sheriff but we wasna gonnae be accepting any eviction notices from that other man. We ripped his clothes off him, found them summonses and burned them we did. Ye gotta stand up for what’s right and proper.”

  The younger generations have all heard this story many a time before and know it to be true. Great-Grandma Mary may be of short stature but she has the strength of character and determination of a giant. Her dear husband Angus, bless his soul, died when the youngest of their ten children was still at the breast. She has worked from dawn to dusk to raise her children. She was born a Stewart. It is in her blood to do whatever is needed to ensure the survival of her family. The stories of her ancestors’ escape following the Battle of Culloden have often been told and retold around the fires at night.

  “What’s right and proper Mama is that we shouldnae have to struggle to feed and clothe our children. To scrape a living together off land that is barren and rocky while the lairds live in luxury in their castles and keep the best land for wealthy sheep farmers from the south,” argues Murdo. “There be nae equity in that.”

  Knowing that his decision will be met with disapproval, Roderick quietly says, “That’s why we are leaving.”

  Except for the crackling of the flames, the room goes quiet. Everyone looks at Roderick, then at Barbara who is nervously wringing her hands in her apron, and finally at the matriarch of the family Great-Grandma Mary. The silence is too long. Roderick feels the need to fill the void.

  “I have a job. A real paying job in the general merchants in Ullapool. We are gonna be able to buy our food from the store. There be rooms upstairs for us to live and space out back for a vegetable garden. The children will be at school ev’ry day.”

  He didn’t add that they would be able to save enough money to fulfill his dream to buy passage for all the family to Australia. Moving to Ullapool, a good seven miles away, is further than most Highlanders ever go in their lives.

  “A Campbell doesnae run! A Campbell stands and fights!” declares Great-Grandma Mary with all the fierceness of a battle cry.

  “There be nothing left to fight with. I be half ye age Seanmhair and if I donnae go now I never will. Barbara and me children deserve better,” Roderick replies, attempting to justify his decision.

  Two generations of Murdos feel disappointed. The elder because he thinks he and Jessie have raised their son Roderick to believe supporting family is most important, but here he is abandoning them. The younger thinks that if his brother leaves Achadh’ a Braigh, he will be the only man of working age able to provide for the village. The burden upon his shoulders will grow still heavier than it already is.

  “Deserve better! Deserve better! Ye sound like the very lairds who want to make our lives more difficult. A Scot makes the best out of what he is given. He doesnae go looking for something better,” proclaims Great-Grandma Mary.

  “Well, we be sorry but it’s all arranged. We move at the end of the month,” says Roderick not wanting the discussion to go any further.

  “Would any of ye be wanting some more broth?” asks Jessie seeking to lighten the mood of the gathering.

  “Nae, I be needing a dram or two of whisky to deal with this news,” states Murdo as he goes to the wooden dresser to grab some cups and a flask of his father’s finest Scotch whisky.

  a crying wee Murdo bursts back through the door. His little three-year-old legs have struggled to keep up with his older cousins and he decides a cuddle inside is more to his liking. Pulling the wee boy up into her bony lap, Great-grandma Mary whispers to him.

  “Ye’ll nae abandon ye family, will ye wee one?”

  .....

  A fortnight later, the fog and mist closes in around Achadh’ a Braigh. The villagers’ cart is laden with Roderick and Barbara’s meagre possessions: the wooden dressers he has built from timber washed up on the shore, Barbara’s spinning wheel, their clothes, woollen blankets, and a box of plates, cups and animal-horn spoons. William and Angus walk to fetch the horse from the field behind the crofts. Their Uncle Murdo is in the neighbouring field picking up the loose stones that have come to the surface when the field was ploughed the day before. Wee Murdo and his big sister Mary trail their father about the paddock. Just as they see their father doing, they pick up stones. However throwing them any great distance is difficult for their little arms but Murdo, wanting to instill a good work ethic in his children, encourages them to carry on.

  “Ye’ll have to bring the horse back on the morrow,” he yells to the lads. “She’s needed to fetch the creels of kelp the women are gathering from the coast today. We need to get it spread on these fields before we sow the oats.”

  “Aye Uncle. I’ll be back in the morn,” replies William, “I willnae be able to go across the fields with the cart so I’ll set out at first light. I can take the shorter route by foot on the way back to Ullapool so I’ll make it back by nightfall.”

  The silvery-grey nag is not impressed to be taken from the field where she is quietly munching on a feed of hay. But her oversized Clydesdale hooves plod one after another, once into a rhythm. Begrudgingly she lets herself be hitched to the cart. Polite goodbyes are said and seven Campbells leave the village for a new life. Barbara and her daughters, Catherine and Alexandrina, are atop the cart; Roderick and their three sons walk along beside.

  .....

  Great-Grandma Mary dies in her sleep that night. Her sorrowful heart, which has beaten for more than four-score and ten years can no longer support her tired old body. The day dawns grey and drizzling and offers no comfort to the mourning family. Word is sent from Bade
nscaille to the neighbouring villages and the family gathers again. Six sons are hardly required to carry her withered wisp of a body, swathed in blue homespun, on an open bier to the church, but it is their honour to do so. The church sits peacefully in a placid glen at the head of Loch Broom and has done so for nearly two centuries. Sons, daughters, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and fellow Highlanders shelter under the gnarled branches of an ancient pine tree which stands majestically in the graveyard at the rear of the church. They stand together solemnly supporting one another in death as they do in life while the minister gives the blessing. The sons slide their mother’s body down into the open grave. There is no money for a gravestone. It is a small white cross that will mark this special place and record the passing of the family’s matriarch.

  Chapter Three

  Coigach, Scottish Highlands 1881

  Murdo wakes suddenly. His sleepy daze is instantly banished when he recognizes the sound of roof thatching being thrashed about by fierce winds. A brutal storm has descended upon the west Highlands overnight. He grabs his patched brown tweeds, dons them over his long-johns and opens the door to head outside, only to be pelted by driving rain. The door slams back, hitting the inside wall. It requires all his strength to close it against the storm and afford some protection to Annie and the children now huddling together in one box bed.

  The seamanan fraoich needs to be secured. One of the ropes made of heather, which hold the thatch down has broken away. Murdo manages to seize hold of the loose end before it whips him about the face but it is too short now to re-attach to the ground stake. He can hear his father herding the last of the frightened sheep into their croft for shelter; he calls to him to bring another piece of rope. They soon have the seamanan fraoich securely retied and set off to check everyone else in the village is safely inside their crofts.

  The sky is laden with thunderous black clouds. A crack of lightning vaults across the darkness, its tentacles reaching out to the earth but never quite touching. It gives a flash of light sufficient to see the remaining crofts appear safe before plunging the village back into darkness. The low, stone walls surrounding the fields are too squat to prevent the tender shoots of the crops being battered. There is another flash of lightning and the men can see the damage, imagine its extent, but know it is futile to continue, so they return to the safety of the crofts.

  Angus, being a lad of some seven years now, takes it upon himself to light some bog-fir splinters from the heap ready in the corner. The crackling resin gives off sufficient light to chase away the witches alive in the younger children’s imaginations.

  Murdo removes his woollen hat and coat, shakes off the raindrops that have not yet soaked through and hangs the garments on the wooden peg by the door.

  “Papa, please tell us a story,” pleads Mary sitting huddled into her mother’s side.

  Her brother Murdo sits up and rubs the sleep from his four-year-old eyes. He wants to be wide awake to listen to his Papa’s story with its promise of excitement and wonder of the world that lies beyond the big hills he can see every day but is too young to explore.

  With the storm battling away outside, there is nothing else to be done, so Murdo pulls up a stool beside the peat fire so the heat can dry his clothes. He remembers a folk tale he has been told on many a stormy night and begins.

  “Many years ago there was a bleak and barren glen, filled with boulders and heaps of jagged stones. One day the young men from the village go to see the wise old man, wanting a place to live where the hills are smooth and the land fertile. The wise old man knows there are two giants living in the neighbouring mountains who are forever quarrelling about their strength. He goes to them and suggests they come to the glen and he will find a way to settle who is the strongest. The next day the giants arrive and all the villagers come to watch. The wise old man challenges them to see who can throw a stone to the mountaintop. The giants laugh and hurl the stones far out of sight. The wise old man suggests they try bigger and bigger rocks and eventually boulders bigger than the crofts. By evening the glen has been cleared and the giants are so tired they can hardly stand. The wise old man tells the giants there is still no way of knowing who is the strongest because they have lost count of the number of stones thrown. He tells the giants to go and look for the rock that has been thrown the farthest and bring it back so they can repeat the feat and know who is the strongest. The stupid giants are still quarrelling when they go off in search of the rock. Still today they have not returned; the glen is smooth and the soil fertile. The noise of the wind is them quarrelling in a far off glen.”

  Murdo’s lilting voice soothes the children back into a peaceful slumber. Until daylight comes and the winds abate there is little else to do but keep safe and dry in the croft.

  .....

  When they are finally able to venture outside, the damage that greets them is heart-breaking. The crops that are due to be harvested in the next month are all but torn from the ground. The plants’ battered heads lie lifeless on the sodden turf. Leaves, whole branches and clumps of heather are strewn about the fields. Water has carved great gouges out of the central track between the crofts. Murdo is reluctant to go down to the river – he knows he needs to see the storm’s aftermath but worries about what he will find.

  Annie comes to his side with wee Ann on her hip and Angus, Mary and Murdo single file behind. Worrying, she asks her husband, “Och, what’ll we do now?”

  Murdo replies with a sigh, “There’s nowt to be done but I’d better get on with the clean up. I’m down to the river to see how the boat’s fared.”

  Angus’s eyes and ears open wide at the word ‘river’. Remembering the treasure he’s found after other storms, he wants to be first to the riverside and offers,

  “Papa, can I help ye?”

  “Aye, lad. Ye be grabbing a creel so we can collect any useful bits washed up.”

  “Me Papa. Me come too,” wee Murdo pleads tugging on his father’s trouser leg, anxious to be in on the adventure.

  “Och lad, ye cannae come this time. The waters be too dangerous for a wee lad like ye.” Laughing, Murdo tousles his son’s head of curly blonde hair and attempts to make wee Murdo feel important. “I need ye to stay and help ye mama. Ye can gather all the heather that’s been blown into the village. We can dry it out to be used for bedding.”

  Angus runs back to the croft to fetch the creel. Even though it is nearly as tall as him, he will not be denied a rummage through the debris, so he heaves it onto his back and returns to his father. Everyone is glad to be freed from the confines of the croft and eagerly start the clean-up.

  .....

  It is obvious the seas have been mighty fierce during the storm. The high-water mark is littered with debris from the river mouth right up to the burn where the rocks prevent the tidal water from mixing with the fresh. The smack looks to have fought its own battle. It has been driven far up the brae, overturned and covered by large branches and timber adrift from other less fortunate boats. Murdo and Angus are dragging everything aside when Duncan comes upon them.

  “She’s survived then has she?” he asks.

  “Aye, looks to have, but I cannae see the nets and oars. Nor the sail,” says Murdo anxiously, lifting a piece of timber off, “but others be nae so lucky by the look of this.”

  “Aye, there’s already word that Archiltibuie is worst hit. Ev’ry boat there, big and small, has been destroyed.”

  “How did ye crops fare?”

  “Nae, all crops at Achinenver be gone. That’s why I be here, needing to know I can still fish to feed me family.”

  “Aye, the same at Achadh’ a Braigh. We’d best clean this mess up then.”

  The two make light work of freeing the smack from its makeshift shackle. The boat’s hull appears intact and they breathe a sigh of relief. At least they will be able to fish the river with their rods. Wandering upriver, Angus finds the torn remnants of the sail buried under piles of kelp, and a net twisted between the ro
cks and embedded with drying seaweed, leaves and twigs. Proud of his find, Angus yells to his papa and the men join him to pull the treasured gear free and inspect the damage. They are grateful the sail and net appear to be repairable but they will need to find some more scraps of sail to patch the rips, and make some rope to mend the net. It will take a good few hours of mending but there is time before spring arrives and Loch Broom is once again calm enough to welcome the fishermen.

  “There should be something here we can fashion some new oars out of. Angus, go look for some timber that’s been washed ashore,” instructs Murdo.

  Angus’ scavenging finds treasure galore – dead fish, smashed boards, tweed rags, broken oars, bloated animal carcasses and a sheep’s skull. The storm’s path of destruction has been wide, sparing nothing in its wake.

  “Nowt here. We’ll just have to patch what we’ve got,” suggests Duncan. “We’ll be needing some birch twigs to make some more ropes for the nets.”

  “Aye. We’d best be gathering what we can from here. Angus, be sure and grab those oars. We have to tie some other wood to them. There be nothing but oats to eat for a few days. When the waters settle we can try for some fish in the river.”

  “Aye. Ye take the nets and I’ll take the sail,” suggests Duncan. “It’ll take a good few days to get this mended. We can meet at your place one day next week and sort the oars out.”

  They pile all the useful items in a heap high on the brae. It can be fetched progressively over the next few days, load by load, or they can bring the horse and cart down if they have time and it isn’t needed elsewhere.

  They return to their respective villages, grateful all has not been lost but knowing there is a lot of work to be done to repair the storm’s damage.

  .....

  A knock at the door prompts Annie and Murdo to stop eating their bannocks. They look at one another, each one wondering who could be calling upon them. Rap, rap, rap, the knock is repeated. It can’t possibly be someone from the village. They would have announced themselves, and with a welcome familiarity have entered the croft by now, eager to escape the cold. Murdo hesitantly opens the door. Their assumption is correct. The formally-dressed gentleman at the door isn’t from around these parts but all the same, they sense who he is and why he has come knocking.