The Rogues Read online

William Rood was the new laird’s factor, the man who managed the laird’s property, collected the rents, and did his dirty work as well. I’d heard he had been a constable down in Glasgow but had lost his job because of his brutality. No one liked him. No one except the laird. But the laird had brought him to the estate to force his will upon the crofting folk. Up until now, that had only meant the brutal collecting of taxes and a beating for anyone late with his rent. Da had missed a beating by a single day and had not stopped talking about it for a full month.

  “He’s the very devil,” said Lachlan, quoting our da.

  “Why is he here?” I said, though in my heart I knew.

  Lachlan turned and pointed at the broken town behind us. “To check his handiwork, I warrant.” Which was my guess as well.

  When Rood reached us, he reined in and squinted down his nose as if taking aim along the barrel of a musket. He was a burly, pig-faced man with squinty eyes and bristly orange hair that stuck out like patches of thistle from under his hat.

  “What are ye young ruffians doing?” he demanded. “This land has been leased out. There’s no place for yer kind here.”

  Lachlan put his hands on his hips. “And what kind would that be?”

  I wondered at his courage.

  “Layabouts, idlers, and thieves,” Rood replied harshly. “Get back to yer own farms while ye still can and leave these men to their honest business.” He tilted his head toward the shepherds, who were now strolling down the hillside, whistling to their dogs.

  “They can do their honest business back in England,” Lachlan said.

  Ma would have put her hand to her heart hearing him speak so, but she’d never scold. However, Cousin Ishbel would make a tching sound, her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Nonsense,” she’d call it. “Haverings.” Da would have had his belt off in a minute to get Lachlan to shut up. But it was as if Rood had loosed a devil inside him. “And they can take their fat sheep with them,” he added.

  Then he leapt at a nearby pair of ewes. They jumped back so suddenly, they made Rood’s horse rear up in surprise. He clenched the reins and struggled to stay in the saddle until he calmed his mount.

  I did the wrong thing then. I laughed.

  Everybody in our glen knew that any hint of mockery was like a wasp’s sting to Willie Rood. It goaded him into a rage as ferocious as it was sudden. They say he had whipped old Angus Mac for making a joke at his expense within his hearing, old Angus being twice his age and crippled as well. And he’d backhanded Annie Dayton, who was only a daft serving girl in the laird’s house, when she called him a “thick-lipped thief” for stealing a kiss from her. Many’s the man in our glen who had a tale to tell about Willie Rood, and every one of them a sour story.

  So knowing that, why did I laugh? Fear? Embarrassment? Terror? I don’t know. It just ran out of me, like milk from a newly calved cow.

  Rood turned the red of a sunset, snatched a cudgel out from under his coat, and before I could make a move to dodge it, lashed out at me. I took the blow square on the side of my head and toppled. Pain filled my skull.

  “Roddy!” It was Lachlan’s voice, though I barely recognized it through the pain.

  I felt a hand under my arm as Lachlan helped me get up. My legs were shaky, and when I opened my eyes, the sunlight stabbed like needles. Lachlan held me protectively, one arm around my shoulders, and shook his fist at Rood.

  “There was nae call for that,” he protested. “It was only a wee bit of fun. He’s only a lad.”

  All I could see was a blurred version of Rood brandishing the cudgel. “There’s plenty left for ye too, lad or no lad, if ye want to test yer luck.”

  The cudgel hovered in the air above us, so huge to my dazed sight, it seemed to fill the whole sky.

  “Hold off there, Willie Rood!” It was a woman’s voice but as firm as any man’s.

  I turned at the sound of it. The movement made me dizzy, and I would have fallen over if Lachlan hadn’t kept a grip on me. Squinting through the painful light, I saw a young woman slowing her horse to a trot and drawing up alongside Rood. I recognized her, though I’d never seen her this close up before. Never talked to her. For when does a crofter’s son speak with the gentry? It was Josephine McRoy—Bonnie Josie—the dead laird’s daughter, the new laird’s niece. The one that Lachlan sometimes dreamed about when he wasn’t dreaming on the Beauty of Glendoun.

  We called her Bonnie Josie not just because of her pretty face and shining copper hair. We called her that because she had been championing the poor clansmen of Kindarry since she was old enough to pull at her father’s sleeve. But her father—who had been a good laird, if sometimes a dab high-handed—was dead this past year. Her uncle ruled these lands now, and he had no soft heart to appeal to. And Willie Rood was his right-hand man.

  Josie glared at the factor.

  Rood lowered his cudgel and tucked it away under the flap of his coat. “They were trying to steal the sheep,” he said, his voice oozing and unctuous, like oil rubbed into leather to soften it.

  “That hardly seems likely,” said Josie, “not with the shepherds and their dogs so close at hand.” Her hands tightened on her horse’s reins till the knuckles turned white. That much I could see.

  “Well, they would steal, given half a chance,” Rood insisted stubbornly. “It’s in their nature.”

  “It’s in their nature to be boys, no more than that,” Josie chided him. “Just as it is in yours to bully those who cannot fight back.”

  Rood’s eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. With an effort, he summoned up a ghastly imitation of a polite smile. “Ye misjudge me, Miss Josephine,” he said. “I’m as kindly as the next man in my own way.”

  “The next man must be a right heathen then,” said Josie tartly. “Go back to your business, Rood, and I’ll see that these boys leave your precious sheep in peace.” She gestured at the fat Cheviot sheep, which seemed to be making a point of keeping their distance, the dogs and shepherds helping.

  Rood wheeled his horse about and looked back over his shoulder. “They’re troublemakers, Miss Josephine,” he warned. “Ye’d best remember that.”

  Josie leaned toward him and said, “I can handle trouble from anyone. You would best remember that, Willie Rood.”

  Grunting in response, Rood rode off in the direction of Kindarry House, where the new laird lived. No doubt to report on what he had seen.

  “What is your name, young man?” Josie asked Lachlan. Though we recognized her, there was no reason she should know us from a hundred other dirty-faced crofting lads.

  “Lachlan Macallan, ma’am, from Dunraw village, on the other side of the mountain.” He pointed west, as if Bonnie Josie didn’t know her own family’s lands—three deep glens and a lot of fine bottom farming. “And this is my brother, Roddy.”

  “What’s left of him anyway,” said Josie, leaning down out of the saddle to peer at the bloody mark Rood had left upon me.

  The pain was dulling to a throb now, but I still felt sick to my stomach. When I put a finger to the wound, it came away with blood on it.

  “Help him climb up here in front of me,” Josie instructed Lachlan, reaching down a hand.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Do I not speak plainly enough? Help your brother up into the saddle. I’m going to take him home with me to see to that wound.” She grabbed the back of my shirt, and with Lachlan taking me by the legs, they wrestled me up so that I was sitting in front of Josie. She curled her arms around me and took hold of the reins.

  “Now, Lachlan Macallan, go back and tell your family your brother is in good hands. I’ll see him safely home before the day is out.”

  3 THE LODGE

  Josie kept her horse to a controlled canter, but it made me so dizzy, I swayed forward.

  “Hang on to her mane,” Josie said. “She won’t mind.”

  I took hold of the horse’s hair. My grip was feeble, and it was only then that I realized how weak I was from Rood’s blow. The
rough grass and heather beneath the horse’s hooves seemed to swell and ebb like the sea, and my stomach was heaving with every lurch of our mount.

  Overhead a hawk screamed out, but I didn’t dare look up.

  “Thank ye for helping,” I muttered, though it was such an effort just getting the words out, I barely recognized my own voice.

  “Hush ye,” Josie said in the common speech, like a mother to her bairn. “We’ll be at the Lodge soon.”

  The Lodge. Since her uncle took over Kindarry House on becoming laird, Bonnie Josie and her mother had been moved into the smaller place. I wondered how she felt about that, having grown up in the laird’s house. I wondered how Fiona and her brothers felt, having no house to live in at all.

  “Are you all right?” Bonnie Josie asked.

  I nodded—though I was far from all right—which only made my head hurt more. If I could not glance up, I could glance down. The earth seemed even farther away than before, and I became dizzy and started to fall. Josie tightened her arms around me to keep me steady.

  So I fixed my eyes on the horse’s ears, and though they kept blurring before my gaze, it was better than looking at the ground. We bobbled and bounced along, and I must have dozed off, for when I opened my eyes again, the Lodge came bobbing into view. Yes, it was small compared with the Laird’s house, but it was still five times the size of our own cottage, with glass windows and a long walk set off with handsome trees. However, it had a homey look, even inviting, with flower boxes at the windows and a brightly painted front door.

  A low hill separated the Lodge from Kindarry House, so close because the Lodge was the old Dower House, something I learned later. The Dower House was where the wife of any dead laird was housed when a new laird came in to rule.

  Kindarry was just visible in the distance. Its grey walls and pointed turrets stood in contrast to the Lodge’s hominess. But that was because Kindarry House had once been a defense against rival clans and English soldiers. In times of war, the clansmen and their families would have crowded into it, safe from all harm. Now those same walls and turrets were a symbol of the laird’s power over his own people. We were kept out of Kindarry because Daniel McRoy squatted there as laird.

  Daniel McRoy! I wanted to spit at his name. But the blow seemed to have robbed me of spit as well as my senses. I sighed and looked around.

  Some dozen families had set up shelter among the trees and the wooden outbuildings near the Lodge. The folk were all crofters, just like my own family. I wondered if Fiona and her brothers were there but couldn’t see well enough to know. Some of the people waved to Josie as we approached the house, but they were just a blur.

  “Who are they?” I asked, my voice still hardly above a whisper.

  “Some of the Glendoun folk,” Josie replied. “The ones who were too sick or too frightened to run any farther after Willie Rood and his men chased them out of their homes. A few of them wanted to go back and see if there was anything they could salvage from the burning. That’s why I rode over there today, to check if it was safe.”

  “Too late,” I said hoarsely. “Glendoun’s no a place for people anymore.”

  We halted by a small stable, and a grey-haired attendant hurried forward to hold the reins while Josie slid down from the saddle. She lifted a hand to me, but I didn’t take it. It didn’t feel right to let a lady do such a thing. Instead, I got off by myself, trying not to cry out when I touched down and the movement jarred my poor head. Once on the ground I found myself swaying.

  “Just take it a step at time,” Josie cautioned me. “Slowly.” She took me by the elbow, and this time I let her help, though I hated being so weak in front of her. Instead, I turned the conversation back to the folk of Glendoun.

  “What’s going to happen to them?” I whispered.

  There was a strain of sadness in Bonnie Josie’s voice. “We can give them a place to rest a few weeks, but that’s all. We’ve not the food nor the money ourselves for more.”

  My mouth must have gaped at that. Imagine—a laird’s daughter with not enough food or money. I think at that moment, my anger at Daniel McRoy turned to hate.

  “A man needs his own land, or else how is he to live?” I said, thinking of Da, who had worked our small holding, first as a boy with his own father, then as a man.

  “By law the land belongs to the laird,” said Josie, telling me what I already knew. Her voice was low and earnest. She was still holding me as we walked. “The poor folk that live on it can scarcely grow enough in crops and livestock to feed themselves, let alone afford a high rent. That’s why my father never raised the rents. What good would it have done except to beggar every farmer in bad years or steal their earnings in good? Instead, he took the rents out in service to the clan. But Daniel McRoy is not the man my father was, though they were half brothers. The new laird’s new friends have promised him rich rewards in exchange for land to graze their sheep on.”

  “Then what’s to become of the Glendoun folk?” I asked, forgetting to concentrate on my walking and almost tripping. “And the others?” Meaning my family and our neighbors. Meaning all of the poor farmers in the glens.

  “Some have family in happier places where the sheep haven’t come yet. Where the old lairds, like my father, believe in blood before gold. There might be a place for them … for a while. Others may trek to the west. There’s land to be had on the coast.”

  I stopped for a moment to catch my breath. I, who could run around several acres of land without heaviness in my chest, was suddenly as feeble as a grandfather. Turning to her to disguise my weakness, I asked, “Is it good land?”

  She shook her head. “Not like our land here, Roddy. It’s barren and pitted with salt. A man could spend a year trying to get something to grow there and still see nothing for his trouble.” Her voice sounded weary, and she brushed a lock of red hair from her eyes. Clearly she’d given this much thought.

  “The clan grandfathers fought to keep this land safe,” I said, the very words hurting my tongue. “Fought with guns and swords, whenever the lairds asked for their service. And now our folk are to wander and starve?”

  “There’s always the mines,” said Josie thinly. “Hard as that is, there’s money to be had there.”

  I shook my head and started it aching again. “That’s a hard turn for them that’s lived under the sun all these years. It’s like being thrown in a dungeon for committing no crime at all.” I was trembling now, more in rage than weakness.

  By this time we’d reached the Lodge, and Josie managed to open the door while still supporting me.

  “Well, all that’s left then is to take a ship to the New World,” she said, pushing me through. “That’s for those with the courage to try it. Many from Glendoun took that road. I suspect many more will follow.”

  “The New World,” I repeated. The words had a sweet ring to them, as if she were talking about heaven.

  “Aye, young Macallan, but it’s far away across the ocean,” she said, “a world away from Scotland, full of new dangers.”

  I could hear a note in her voice that told me she wasn’t thinking only of the poor crofters, but of where she herself might be driven by her uncle. And for the first time I gave thought to crossing the waters that divided us from the Americas. I knew I had the courage, but did I have the will?

  Just then the inside of the Lodge was enough of a new world for me. There must have been nearly a dozen rooms branching off from the wide hallway. It was hard to say why so many were needed. The cottage I lived in may have been only a but and ben—two rooms—but we got along just fine in it: Da, Cousin Ishbel, Lachlan, and me.

  Here, though, besides room after room, opening one into the other, was something I had never seen before—little paintings of trees and flowers in round frames hanging on the walls. I had seen a picture only once in my entire life. Cousin Ishbel had been given a wee portrait of a child, small enough to sit in the palm of her hand, with a thin gold frame about it. It had been a gift f
or bringing a lady’s baby into the world. Ishbel kept the picture wrapped in a bit of plaid for safety and had shown it to us only the once. But Bonnie Josie’s pictures were much bigger, hanging on the wall for all to see. I wanted to go up close and stare at them, fall into them, but my eyes were too blurry. Besides, Josie was still speaking. I turned to look at her.

  “It’s no life of ease in the far Americas either,” she said. “Or so I hear. The land can be as hard and unforgiving as it is here. But at least there’s a chance for freedom there.”

  “Can a man have land he can’t be thrown off?”

  “Aye. And there’s land there for the taking. Not just for the lairds, but for the farmers too. That’s not too big a dream for honest folk, now—is it?”

  I had started nodding in agreement when dizziness seized me and my legs gave way. I cursed myself under my breath for showing such weakness, but even my cursing lacked strength. I leaned on the arm of a covered chair, and Josie gradually drew me up again.

  “Only a wee bit farther, lad,” she said. “I’ve a place where you can lie down and sleep and no one will disturb you.”

  We carried on through to the back of the house—room after room—the air of which was scented with flowers. Josie led me into a small ben off the kitchen and helped me lie down on a straw pallet. Here the flower smell was overcome by a richer odor, of meat cooking and something baking on a griddle. My stomach growled, but my head did too, as if the idea of food would only make me dizzier.

  “This is supposed to be a pantry,” Josie said, “where foodstuffs are kept, but sometimes we need a place for those folk who can’t be left outside when the nights turn chill.”

  “It’s nice,” I whispered, though to tell the truth, my head was now pounding so hard, I could see little of it. There were shelves set in the walls dotted with jars and a window high in the wall. The surprise was that there was glass in it, even in this humble room, which brought in a great shaft of light. At home we had only slits in the stone walls and divots of earth to jam in them when we needed to keep out the wind.