Love and Music Will Endure (17 page)

Màiri meanwhile was deep in a whispered conversation with one of the crew. The man went to lie down on his stomach at the prow of the boat, his head over the side, inhaling deeply with his eyes closed.

‘What on earth is that fellow doing?’ asked Saunders.

‘Oh, Sir, didn’t you know?’ asked Kenneth. ‘That’s how we tell where the fish are hiding. We smell them out. Some fishermen, like my cousin Donald here, have a special gift for it. But we have to stay absolutely still and quiet for it to work.’

For the next ten minutes Donald made his way trance-like around the boat, frequently stopping to lie down and sniff noisily. Finally he rose, tossed his head from side to side and pointed to starboard. The nets were lowered. Saunders hopped from foot to foot in great excitement.

‘This could be the basis for an interesting scientific study. I wonder if other primitive peoples have retained this skill?’

Later, the bulging net was raised on deck and its glittering load spewed out.

‘It makes me think of our Lord on the Sea of Galilee with the fishermen, James and John,’ Màiri observed.

Saunders curled his lip. She bent down to pick up two mackerel, their brindled scales still shining with life and held them out.

‘Perhaps the English gentleman would enjoy these for his supper,’ she boomed in English. He jumped in surprise, knocking against her so that the fish flew out of her hands and landed on him, leaving a silvery saliva trail trickling down his fine dark coat. He stumbled ashore to a chorus of jubilant laughter.

The steamer at Strome Ferry gave a final blast from its hooter. The last passengers hurried to board her, some from the Inverness train and others who had come on the earlier steamer from Skye, celebrating while they waited for the return trip. The last to hurry up the gangplank on his spidery legs was Colin the piper who had accompanied Màiri from Portree. He bundled his pipes under his arm as if he was quietening a squirming piglet. As he did so his instrument let out protesting digestive noises, making his companions laugh. Once aboard they joined a swirling crowd. At first sight the waves of movement appeared to be random but the tide was splashing towards a small group of older men dressed in rough tweeds. In their midst, rooted to the deck and towering over them like a protective oak was Màiri, with a wide smile on her face and a wicker basket by her side. The shuddering of the ship’s engines made the bottles inside it clink. Alexander Finlayson, at nearly seventy, was the oldest of those around her. He smiled warmly beneath his wiry grey beard and shook her hand with shy deliberation. She pulled out a bottle of whisky, ‘Talisker from home – take a good slurp and pass it round. There’s plenty more,’ she urged.

Although she joined in the high spirits around her, another hidden part of her sizzled and seethed like a glowing horse shoe thrust into cold water. Why couldn’t she have been there, among those brave women? Would her presence have made a difference? Whether it would or not, how much she would have enjoyed sending stones winging through the air. It would be a just reward
for all those times when her hand had been stayed – by Captain Bolland’s soldiers, by the Reverend Carmichael at Tuasdale, by Isaac at the riots in Inverness.

‘Now I want to hear the whole story,’ she declared, ‘but first of all, this Sheriff Ivory. Is he truly as mad as they say?’

Finlayson chuckled, ‘He’s been jumping around like a man plagued by midges ever since we burnt the eviction notices. When Ivory was told what had happened he shouted for a hundred soldiers to subdue the island. The wee man’s imagination was running away with him. He claimed there were hordes of us, like the plagues of Egypt, watching on all the hills, day and night.’

‘Highland regiments would never agree to march against their own people,’ Màiri said stoutly.

‘No. That’s why they got Glasgow police instead … and tried to bring them over secretly.’

‘As if Glaswegians could ever keep a secret,’ she chuckled.

‘Aye, there was a newspaper reporter aboard the
Clansman
with them,’ added Peter MacDonald, a stocky man with a shrewd, wind-battered face.

‘Then best of all,’ continued Finlayson, ‘the steamer ran aground as she came into Portree on a low tide during the night, so the whole village could see the fleet of boats bringing them all ashore.’

‘And what a cèilidh there’ll be when we get to Portree, but watch out for the Raasay folk when we stop there. They’ll try to get you all off the steamer to celebrate with them. Anyway, carry on with the story about Sheriff Ivory,’ she said, nudging him in the ribs.

‘Well, the wee bantam led the troop from Portree to the Braes – he was in a waggonette with the Portree Sheriff, the Procurator Fiscal and the Glasgow police commander, all of them too important to tread on God’s earth. But it was a terrible
day with water enough to drown in. Rain poured down from the heavens and the wheels stuck fast in the mud. So they had to walk for the last two miles with the policemen. All Ivory’s fine plumage drooped.’ They all laughed.

‘They weren’t much of an army but they still caught us napping,’ Peter MacDonald continued in a more serious tone. ‘We didn’t expect them to come so early. They got to Gedintailear at the crack of dawn when everyone was still abed. We were just rising when they reached us in Balmeanach. So they caught the five of us.’

‘But everyone put up a brave fight’, Màiri said.

‘Aye, the village folk harried them and tried to rescue us. They rushed to trap them as they took us through
An Cumhang
where the hill rears up on one side and there’s the sheer drop down to the Sound of Raasay on the other. That’s where the police laid about them with their truncheons. We kept shouting for the Peinchorran men who should have helped us but they were still in their beds more than a mile away.’

‘I believe the women gave a good account of themselves,’ Màiri interjected.

‘They fought like lionesses. One of them got Ivory with a clod right on the jaw. I’ve never seen a man look so amazed as he measured his length in the mire,’ Alexander Finlayson roared with laughter. ‘When they arrived to arrest us my
daughter-in-law
had a big pot of water heating up and she threw it over one of the policemen. Sadly he was so wet already that it didn’t do much damage.’

‘But it grieves me that the women and lassies took the brunt of it. Seven of them badly hurt, including poor old Widow Nicolson,’ said Peter MacDonald sadly, ‘I hope the police felt ashamed.’

‘Maybe they were. They looked more like mourners than a victorious army when they took us to Portree jail,’ Alexander
Finlayson said, ‘The hissing and cursing from the crowd would chill your blood, especially when they came from the lips of white haired old grandmothers, “Cursed be you and yours for all eternity”,’ he shuddered.

Màiri shook her head, ‘And they should feel ashamed of themselves. It wasn’t manly work they were doing. I’m sorry the women suffered but there’s no disgrace on the men of the Braes. The shame is on the sheriffs, the factors and the rest of them for invading the homes of peaceable folk to arrest them.’

The Clach came over to join the group, ‘But this time the authorities miscalculated. They didn’t think that the papers would expose their misdeeds. Now they stand condemned in the eyes of the world. Let me introduce you to some of the gentlemen of the Press,’ he suggested, taking her arm. His florid face was grim. ‘I have to tell you how horrified I’ve been by what I’ve seen on the island. Those tiny houses, bare of any comforts. Their boats were in better condition than their homes.’

‘Aye, but you have to remember it’s the boats that bring them a livelihood.’

He carried on, seeming not to hear her, ‘And the people as worn out as the barren land itself. But they’re not objects of pity; they’re dignified. Look at what Alexander Finlayson said after his arrest, “I didn’t intend to break the law. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong but defending our rights. I refused to pay full rent when land had been taken away from us, land our fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers – I cannot remember further back than that – had held before us.” To think that such an enormous force of policemen were sent all the way from Glasgow and Inverness to arrest five such decent men.’

She patted his arm, ‘It’s not just a game to you any more, is it?’

He nodded, for once bereft of words. Then he swallowed, ‘I spoke to one of the policemen.’

‘Why?’ she spluttered, ‘They’re brutes and Papists, most of them.’

‘But the young policeman I spoke to was no thug, he was limping and bloodied. No, don’t sneer – hear me out. He told me that he’d no idea about the sort of people he had been sent to arrest. He was told that they were fierce outlaws, wild as rabid dogs. But when he saw their homes he could have wept, “I remembered my mother’s tales about the famine in Ireland. Folk were fainting with starvation on the roads or dying of pestilence in their houses. Yet the landlords were blaming them for their plight. I saw the same thing happening in Scotland and I’d no stomach for such a cowardly fight.”’

She sniffed, ‘I hope that he tells other people. Then maybe next time the police will refuse to march against us. There’ll be no more blue-backed hordes in the glens.’

‘You calling them blue-backs reminds me of a strange story I was told about Alasdair, the old soothsayer. He saw a vision of a tide of blue helmets coming up the brae to Balmeanach. When they actually did come though they looked as if they would march past the place where he had seen them stop. He stood there open mouthed, horrified that his vision had been wrong. But at the last minute that silly wee Napoleon of a sheriff ordered them to halt. The old man fell to his knees in relief that he’d not been mistaken … Ah, here’s Patrick Kelly, one of the reporters who’s been writing about the Braes.’

The reporter’s jovial face was red and glistening, ‘You’re talking about Second Sight? Well, of course we have that too, over in the old country. Now what I find so odd about that story was that the fellow was so relieved to have been proved right about the place where the police stopped. I would have thought he would
be tearing his hair out for not predicting the right time of their arrival. Had he known the raid was going to be early … well, who knows …’

Màiri looked scornfully down her nose at him, ‘Second sight is God-given. The seer is only the recipient. He can’t control what he sees.’

Patrick Kelly shrugged, ‘Answer me another conundrum then, if you will. After the five were hauled away to jail there was a plan hatched for men from the Braes to march on the square in Portree, carrying a mast as a battering ram so they could break down the doors of the jail. The men from Balmeanach marched off on their own when the promised reinforcement from the other villages didn’t arrive. As they neared Portree they passed Viewfield, where they heard that the wife of the factor’s brother had just given birth. So what did they do but stop to raise a cheer for the infant. Now why, by all the saints, would they do that? Why would they pour blessings on the head of the child born to one of Lord MacDonald’s creatures when MacDonald was the enemy they had been fighting against?’

Màiri stared hard at him and spoke in a dangerously quiet voice, ‘Tell me, when you look down at the sea from a hillside, what colour is the water?’

He looked quizzical but decided to humour her, ‘Blue, of course, but the sea mirrors the sky and the exact shade will depend on the weather.’

‘True. And even on the same day the colours will vary across a stretch of water, from dark greenish blue where it’s deep to grey-green or colourless in the shallows. We Gaels hold different shades of colour in our minds. You Irish hate your landlords. That’s understandable, they aren’t of your race and they spend their time in England with no care for their tenants. We too hate the outsiders who have bought estates in the Highlands
and use their factors to clear people off the lands they’ve held for generations. But we have room in our hearts for the lairds whose forefathers looked after their people.’

‘And that’s why you won’t win the battle to keep your land. The lords as a class of men are your enemies. You can’t make exceptions and feel a tenderness for some. The old lords are as heartless as the new ones. There’s no room for softness in war time. That’s why the Braes men lost their courage and carried their mast back home,’ Kelly retorted.

‘And if they’d attacked the jail and broken heads would they still have the support of so many people across the length and breadth of our nation? Why do you think so many distrust your Irish Land League? It’s because you use violence,’ Màiri insisted.

‘Think of the
Fianna
who won all those battles in Ireland and Scotland. Did they win them by being polite and drinking tea with their enemies?’ he replied. But he found himself addressing the broad buttress of Màiri’s rear as she bent down to fetch more provisions from her basket.

‘Come on Màiri, Nighean Iain Bhàin, are you going to give us a song about the fight at the Cumhang?’ a voice called out.

‘Not yet. I shall compose it after the court case is over and you’ve been cleared. Or even better, I shall sing it when you have Ben Lee back again.’

‘You’ll give us a good thirty verses then?’ someone else shouted.

‘At the very least,’ Màiri laughed. ‘You’ll have to make do with my older songs for now. How about “
Nuair a bha mi òg?
”’

‘That’s a few years ago for some of us,’ observed Alexander Finlayson.

‘But the mature whisky is the best of the lot,’ she countered.

‘Do you know that the papers are calling it “The Battle of the Braes?”’ The Clach asked.

‘And so they should, for it was a battle between good and evil, a battle that we shall win.’ Then she planted her feet down firmly, lifted her head and sang,