Sarah Gabriel (14 page)

“Why?” Fergus snapped, and glanced at Ranald.

“They might be particularly weary some mornings, or without time to do their home lessons the night before. It would help me to assess their work as scholars.”

“Ah.” Ranald nodded. “My son Andrew, is he a good scholar?”

“Very bright, and a fast learner, Mr. MacGregor. So is Jamie,” she added.

“Jamie is my grandson,” Fergus said proudly. “A good lad.”

“Andrew has his mother’s wit,” Ranald said. “Not mine. I do not read English.”

“Yet you speak it very well. And you are undoubtedly a clever man, which your son has inherited from you,” she answered.

“That is true,” Ranald said, puffing proudly.

“Huh,” Fergus said, as if he doubted it. “Miss, you are a good teacher and a charming lass, I am thinking. What of our great-niece, Lucy, how does she in the school? The laird will want to know.”

“The laird should ask me himself, but I have not seen him all this week. She is a bit spirited, and also very bright. She’s an enjoyable child.”

“The laird has been very busy with matters in the glen,” Fergus said.

“I am sure of it,” she said with a little spice in her tone.

Fergus huffed. “As for Lucy, do not seat her with Jamie. She torments the lad.”

“A little, but I suspect it is a form of affection.”

The men looked surprised. “She does not want to be in school, though Jamie likes the lessons,” Ranald said.

“So it goes with some children,” Fiona replied. “Sooner or later, they learn what they need to learn, and leave the rest.”

“She is a good dominie, this one,” Fergus told Ranald. “Perhaps the roof can wait a bit.”

“The roof?” Fiona looked up. “I noticed some damp spots on the ceiling, but nothing concerning.”

“Let us take a look,” Ranald said. “We have not always had a teacher here at the glen school,”
he continued. “Some years a traveling dominie would come to the glen and stay a season, going from house to house so the bairns could learn their reading and maths at home. That did well enough. We learned that way,” he said, glancing at Fergus, who shrugged.

“We did not learn much,” he said. “John—that was our oldest brother, miss, and the father of the current laird—was more interested in learning than we three. He studied on his own, and took an interest in books and learning for his tenants and his son, too. Wanted him to have an education.”

“As every laird needs, these days especially,” Fiona said. “I have heard of the practice of traveling dominie. Sometimes it is the best solution when the glen is large and distances are too great for the students to walk to the only school for miles.” She saw the men nod and glance at each other. “If more children want to come to the school from the far ends of Glen Kinloch, I will speak to Reverend MacIan about hiring a traveling dominie to help out.”

“We cannot afford to hire another teacher. We are a poor glen,” Fergus said. “One teacher, that is you.”

“And the roof is leaking,” Ranald said, without glancing up. “Leaking bad.”

“How do you know, without looking at it?” she asked. “At any rate, I am only prepared to teach reading and writing here, and I plan to return to Edinburgh soon.”

“How soon?” Fergus asked.

“A few weeks. Can the roof not wait until then?”

The men only looked at each other, then walked to a shadowy corner behind the rows of benches. There they ran their hands over the walls and stooped to check the planked wooden floor for dampness and cracks. The level of the ceiling, which comprised roof beams topped by thick bound thatch, was within Fergus’s long reach. They stood gazing upward for so long, and murmuring, that Fiona walked back to join them.

“I hope it is nothing serious,” she said.

“It shows the damp,” Fergus said. “See there.” He indicated some stains and cracks.

“Could you patch it for now?”

“A patch will not do. It needs a new roof, slates like our other buildings here, or at least a new thatching,” Ranald told her. “And the rooftree needs replacing. There is some rot up there, see.” He indicated the roof beams overhead.

“Can you not repair it now, and replace it properly later?”

“We cannot wait that long,” Ranald said quickly. “A week, no more.”

She glanced up at the ceiling, where the underside of the sturdy thatch roof showed above bare roof beams, for the building was that old. “Are we in danger from this?”

“Och, could be,” Ranald said.

“Oh dear!” Fiona glanced through the window, hearing shouts outside. Most of the students had
finished eating, and the boys were gathered in the center of the yard, kicking a ball among them. She turned back. “But we are just getting started with our lessons. It would not do to interrupt them now.”

“It would not do for the roof to fall on their heads, miss,” Fergus pointed out.

“Perhaps you can return to Glen Kinloch later for the teaching,” Ranald added.

Suddenly suspicious, she folded her arms. “Did the laird send you here to tell me this?”

“Not at all. We knew the roof had some damage,” Ranald said.

“Then why were we allowed to start up school sessions again?” she asked.

Fergus shrugged. “It is not for us to say. You must ask the laird.”

“I will,” she said firmly. The shouts from the yard were growing louder, distracting her with thoughts of her class. She stepped back. “It is time for the scholars to come inside. Thank you, sirs. May we talk about this later?”

As Fiona opened door, the MacGregors behind her, she saw that near pandemonium had taken hold in the yard, as the students—boys and girls—still kicked the ball among them, yet seemed to have lost any sense of manners and decorum. Shoving and shouting, some of them fighting and tugging on one another, they jammed together in a group, tussling over the ball, so that Fiona could barely identify each one.

And she stared, feeling a quick excitement that she recalled from childhood, when she and her brothers had played similar games with the children on their Perthshire estate. But as teacher, she could not let it continue. “It is time for class,” she said, stepping outside quickly. “Time for this to end!”

Ranald and Fergus ran past her toward the group, and she waited, thinking they would quickly end the rough play. Instead they joined in, laughing and calling out.

And then, in the midst of the group, Fiona recognized the laird of Kinloch huddled with the boys, striving with the rest for the ball.

“Where is that ba’!” Ranald shouted as he shoved his way into the thick of the group, and Dougal looked up to see two of his uncles shouldering their way through.

“Watch the girls,” he growled to Ranald, putting up an arm to protect Pol’s sister Mairi as the expanding group jostled and enlarged. He knew how seriously his uncles took any game of football. “Fergus, mind the wee ones. Jamie—Lucy—out with you,” he ordered. “The game is too rough now.” Ignoring him, the younger ones scrambled on with the rest.

“Da, what side are you on?” Andrew called to his father. “We need more men!”

“What sides do we have today?” Fergus asked.

“Kinnies and Glennies,” Pol answered. “Those related to Kinloch, and those not.”

“Then we are all on the same side,” Ranald
called, amid laughter. He hunkered down and swept at the ball with his booted toe. “Nearly had it—damn!”

“What is this?” Hearing the female voice, Dougal glanced up to see Fiona MacCarran standing at the outskirts of the circle. “Watch the little ones, if you please!” she called.

He straightened, looking toward her, seeing her distress—she was pink in the cheeks from shouting. Blasting out a sigh, he stretched out his arm to slow down those nearest him, including Andrew and Mairi. “Stop,” he said. “Enough.”

“But we only started—” Pol began, looked up, and stopped.

Fiona clasped her hands in front of her. “Time for class to resume,” she said. “Come inside.” Around Dougal, the others slowed, stared, and did not respond. A few of them still pushed the ball around with their feet. She walked forward to the edge of the cluster.

“It is time for class,” she said sternly, hands folded.

“Och, just a bit longer,” Fergus said, and one of the younger ones laughed—Duncan Lamont from down the glen side had joined in, Dougal saw, while his sister Sarah and Annabel MacDonald hung back, not taking part. “Please,” Fergus said, to more laughter.

Fiona’s frown grew, hands folded. “It is time for lessons to start, or the day will be very long,” she said.

“Enough, lads, lasses,” Dougal said, and stepped back, drawing with him the ones standing nearest to him. The ball, abandoned for a moment in the center, rolled. He shooed the students away. “Listen to your dominie,” he said, and looked at his uncles. “You, too.”

“Back to work for us and to lessons for you,” Fergus said, and ruffled his grandson Jamie’s red hair. “Good work at the football, lad.”

Jamie grinned and ran forward with the others as the students trudged past their teacher, who stood silently in the middle of the yard, hands folded, mouth set in a prim line as they filed into the school.

Dougal fisted his hand at his waist and watched her. “Good day, Miss MacCarran,” he called. “It is a fine day for a game of the football.”

“It is,” she said, “but far better done after school, or on a Saturday. There are lessons to be learned, and hard play comes later.”

“Just as in life—work first, play later,” he drawled. “Until later, then, Miss MacCarran.”

“Mr. MacGregor.” A smile quirked her lips, the luscious lips he had tasted and wanted to again; the feeling tugged at him, as often happened when he saw her, was close to her.

The ball was at his foot. He kicked it with his toe and sent it toward her.

Quickly she raised her skirt hems and punted the ball back to him with ease, scooping the ball with the top of her foot and sending it upward to
land softly, just at his feet. Dougal halted the ball with his toe and looked up at her, impressed.

“You see, Kinloch,” she said, “I am not afraid of the games you play here in the glen.”

“So I see,” he murmured, and inclined his head. “But are you equal to them?”

“I believe so. Do you?” She turned away, smiling. Once again, wistful and quick, Dougal wished that smile was for him, but this time it seemed hers alone. The lovely expression disappeared as she entered the classroom, in its stead a stern dominie who would no doubt treat her scholars to an extra lesson.

Dougal chuckled to himself, picked up the ball, and walked back toward Kinloch House. He saw Ranald and Fergus standing in the yard there, waiting for him.

“That’s a good lass,” Ranald grunted.

Dougal threw the ball toward him. “Keep this, we will need it,” he told his uncles, both of them. “And start spreading the word—we want to form a game. A serious one.”

“When, and played by whom?” Fergus asked.

“Soon enough, and everyone,” Dougal said, and went into the house.

Once the students were settled in their seats, Fiona asked Lilias Beaton to pass around a second set of pages that Fiona had copied the previous evening.

“This is a new verse for us to try,” Fiona told the class. “It is called a
fith-fath.
”

“Fith-faths!
They are old charms,” Mairi said. “My grandmother recites them. Why should we learn those in English?”

“Because these verses contain lists of words that are easy to learn in translation. Listen,” she said, and began in Gaelic:

“A
fith-fath
I make on you,” she then said in English, “from sheep, from ram, from goat, from stag…” She had chosen the ancient Gaelic household blessing for its common form—lists of animal names and plain nouns that were simple enough to teach in English, both verbally and written. And she had counted on the fact that many of the students would find the verses familiar and the form quick to absorb.

Now she wished that she knew a blessing charm for a roof; it seemed they could use one. She glanced up at the ceiling uneasily, not sure if it was indeed so precarious, or if Ranald and Fergus MacGregor were leading her on in another scheme.

As the students repeated the lines, Fiona heard the thunk of boots on the step. Thinking Ranald and Fergus had returned, she turned, intending to ask them to wait until the class was excused.

Dougal MacGregor stood in the doorway, arms folded as he quietly listened. Fiona felt her heart
leap in her chest, but she squared her shoulders. Still in the middle of the lesson, she did not want to interrupt the students, and when MacGregor motioned for her to continue, she calmly turned back to her class and finished the word lists, aware all the while that he was watching.

She walked toward him. “Mr. MacGregor,” she said warily.

“Pardon the interruption, Miss MacCarran.” He inclined his head. “I thought class might be ended by now. I would like a word with you.”

Her heart gave a little fillip of excitement and dread—she surely needed a word with him, and beyond that, she would admit no need where he was concerned. Then she nodded. “Very well. We are not done with our lesson yet. Can it wait until after class?”

“Let it be another day,” he said. “I have some business to tend to very shortly.”

“Another day, then,” she murmured, wondering if that business had to do with smuggling, and silent treks over the hills at night. “I will be here tomorrow, as always.”

“Tomorrow, then, after class. I have something to discuss with you.”

Excitement stirred in her again. “Oh? Do you want to look at the roof, too?”

“Not that. Other matters.”

She leaned forward. “Illicit ones?”

“You,” he said, leaning toward her, “are far too eager.”

“I rather enjoyed myself the other night,” she murmured, and felt herself blush.

“Did you?” He smiled down at her, and she suddenly wished for more from him, hoped he would return the interest that was ever-increasing within her. She wanted him to take her into his confidence—and into his arms again. “I am glad.”