Entry Island(83)
Annag speaks up for the first time. But her voice is brittle and uncertain. ‘Maybe he’s right, mamaidh. If there’s forty or more of them coming to put us out we’ll not stand a chance. Maybe we should go with the laird’s girl.’
My mother swings her head around slowly, and the look she gives Annag could have turned her to stone. ‘We’re staying,’ she says, with such finality that not one of us is left in any doubt that there will be no arguing with her. ‘Now go and start collecting stones, girls. Good, fist-sized stones that’ll crack a constable’s skull.’ She turns back to me. ‘You’re a Mackenzie, boy. And Mackenzies don’t give up without a fight.’
I wonder what my father would have done.
*
The wind has dropped, so has the temperature, and the rain has come at last. A fine, wetting rain that drifts like mist over the mountains. When the constables arrive, they seem like wraiths lined up along the top of the hill, grey figures against a grey sky.
The villagers, and all the crofters and their families from the township, are gathered among the houses and along the shore. Nearly two hundred of us. We are a pathetic bunch, diminished by the famine and ill-equipped to stand up to a gang of sturdy, well-fed constables and estate workers. But we are fired up with righteous indignation. These are our homes, and this is our land. Our ancestors have lived here since before anyone can remember, and long before any laird thought that his wealth could buy and sell our souls.
I am resigned to the fight. My heart breaks for Ciorstaidh, but I won’t leave my family. Even though I know this is hopeless. I know, too, that before the day is out I will either be dead or on a ship bound for the New World. But I am not afraid anymore. Just determined.
I feel fear moving like a stranger among the others as our enemies gather on the hill, formidable in their dark anonymity, threatening in their silence. And it is the strangest quiet that has fallen over Baile Mhanais. Without the wind the sea is hushed as if it holds its breath. Not even the plaintive cry of the gulls breaches the still of the late morning.
Two figures detach themselves from the group on the hill and walk down the path towards us. It is not until they are close that I recognise one of them as the factor. The laird’s lackey. His estate manager, Dougal Macaulay. A man universally despised. Because he was once one of us and now does the laird’s bidding. No doubt he thinks that rubbing shoulders with the gentry makes him better than his peers. And you can hear it in his tone as the two men stop no more than a few feet away from the crowd. Me, my mother and my sisters are up there at the front.
He casts a speculative eye over the assembled villagers before he says in Gaelic, ‘This is Mr Jamieson, the Sheriff-Depute.’
Mr Jamieson is a man of average height and build, maybe forty-five or fifty years old. He wears leather boots and a long coat that glistens with myriad tiny droplets of rain. His hat is pulled down low over his brow so that we can barely see his eyes. His voice is strong and carries the confidence of the ruling class, and his breath billows like mist around his head as he speaks in English, a language that 90 per cent or more of the people of the township will not understand.
‘People of Baile Mhanais. I am here to inform you that the notices to quit served upon you fourteen days since have now expired. I ask you for the sake of peace and good order to leave now, or I shall have no option but to sanction your forcible eviction.’ His words might not have been understood, but his tone is.
I feel anger well up inside me. ‘And if someone came, Mr Jamieson, and asked you to leave your home, how would you feel?’
He raises his head a little as if to see me more clearly. ‘If I were in arrears with my rent, young man, I would have no option but to comply. The law is the law.’
‘Aye, your fucking law!’ shouts someone with a good grasp of the English vernacular.
‘There’s no need for that kind of language!’ the factor says sharply.
‘How can we pay rent when we have no money and no means to earn it?’ I turn at the sound of Donald Dubh’s voice at my shoulder and see his face as grey as the ocean. I am surprised to hear him speak English.
Mr Jamieson sets his jaw against the tone of the debate. ‘I am not here to discuss the social issues involved. Only to enforce the law. I’m warning you that this is an illegal gathering, and that if you do not break it up and leave peacefully I will be forced to read you the Riot Act.’
I have no idea what the Riot Act is, or what the reading of it might entail, but the factor translates his words into Gaelic and they return an uneasy silence to the crowd. No one moves, and the Sheriff-Depute reaches into an inside pocket to bring out a sheet of paper which he proceeds to unfold.