Michener, James A. (50 page)

'It wasn't the killing, mind you,' the old man said, his hands trembling with rage as he recalled this ancient wrong. 'Our glens have seen murder before. It was the perfidy. To sup with a man for ten days in a row, and on the eleventh, when your belly is filled with his bread, to slay him in the dead of night, befouling his own home . . .'

'Why didn't the Macdonalds fight back?' young Finlay asked.

'Those trapped in their own homes had no chance. But those clans outside who pertain to the Macdonalds have never stopped seeking revenge.' Taking his grandson's hands, he said solemnly: 'Laddie, wherever, whenever you meet a Campbell, expect treachery. Never forget that your father died fighting them.'

The next two years in Glen Lyon were marked by the arrival of a tall, gawky man who intended to bring piety and learning to this embattled area.

He was Ninian Gow, Master of Arts from the University of St. Andrews in eastern Scotland and ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian church founded by John Knox. He was deep-visaged and had large dark hairs which grew out from his Adam's apple

and moved in the air when he preached; he was incontestably a man of God and a fearless champion of decency. He loved his church and had made great sacrifices to serve it, but he loved mankind more. His two abiding convictions were that Scotland could not be truly saved until its young people, boys and girls alike, learned to read, and that it was doomed unless it combated the evils of popery.

The Campbells are Catholics, you know,' he roared during his first sermon in the glen. The glorious Reformation which brought us the true religion, Presbyterian ism in its moral grandeur, never reached the blighted glens in which the craven Campbells lurked. They remained unconverted, as they do to this day, ensnared in the web of popery.' At this point he halted his sermon and stared out at the small gathering of Macnabs and Macdonalds, asking finally in a hushed voice: 'Is it any wonder that they saw no evil in worming their way into the affections of the Macdonalds and then slaughtering them?'

Silence filled the tiny kirk, broken only by Gow's deep voice crying: 'Let us pray.' This was an ominous invitation, for a prayer by Ninian Gow was apt to last a good twenty minutes, and on those sulphurous Sundays when he paid full attention to the papist menace, it could consume twice that time.

He had not been in Glen Lyon long when he began to recognize that Finlay Macnab, grandson of the clan's patriarch, had unusual prospects, and when he consulted the local dominie he was pleased to hear: The lad masters his numbers quickly and learns to read more ably than others older than himself.' The teacher said that Finlay had also acquired a fine, open style of lettering, and this obviously pleased him, for he said: 'Clear handwriting is proof of a clear conscience.'

When Ninian Gow made his first report to old Macnab on the boy's progress, he broached the subject of the University of St. Andrews as a likely target for the lad's ambitions. Finlay's grandfather had never considered sending his grandson to college, but he had such a high regard for the good sense of the new minister that after he heard him out, he said he would think about it, then asked: 'And where is this St. Andrews?'

That simple question was all Master Gow needed: it lies on the coast of Fife, an old city of gray stone hard by the Northern Sea. It is marked by ancient ruins and fine new college buildings. It's the foundation of Presbyterianism in Scotland, and it is not by accident that its once Catholic cathedral is now in ruins. God struck it down. And along its hallowed streets, set deep within the cobbled stones, stand memorials to the founders of our religion

whom the papists burned to death for refusing to abjure their new Presbyterianism.'

it sounds like a holy place,' said Macnab, and his wife nodded silent agreement.

It's more!' the minister said, revealing a hitherto hidden side of his character. 'For a small town it has an unusual number of taverns, twenty-three in all, it's said, where the scholars gather after their studies, and of course it has the gowf.'

'The what?' Macnab asked.

'The gowf. A links of fair green stretching beside the sea. A wee ball stuffed with feathers. Three clubs to smash it with, and four happy hours in the windy sunlight.'

'Surely it's not a game you're speaking of?' the dour Highlander asked.

'Aye, the grandest game of them all. All the scholars at St. Andrews play at the gowf, I more than most.'

'Do you still play?' Macnab asked.

'Aye, that 1 do. We have no links, that's true, but I have my clubs and I brought with me three wee balls, and in the evening I like to hit them far and away down the meadows, making believe that I am once more at St. Andrews, studying the Bible at St. Mary's College and playing along the links at the seaside.'

On many occasions he returned to the subject of St. Andrews and the feasibility of young Macnab's reporting there for schooling, but finally the old man told him why he opposed the idea: i have no mind to seeing a grandson of mine take up the ministry.'

'Oh, sir! Only a few who attend St. Andrews elect the ministry. It's for everyone. The merchant. The laird. The man who sends his ships to Holland.'

'But what would a grandson of mine profit from such a place if he was to come back to this glen and live as 1 have lived?'

'The learning, man, think of the learning!' And he spoke with such reverence for the simple act of knowing that Macnab began to consider this curious possibility: that a son of the glen could attend the university and become a better man for having done so, regardless of what occupation he followed thereafter.

The practicability of such a move became so challenging to Macnab that one afternoon he walked down to the kirk and asked the minister: 'Tell me one thing. What boy in a crofter's glen needs Latin?' and Gow said softly: The boy who is destined to leave the crofter's glen.'

The answer was so perceptive that after supper Macnab held a quiet discussion with his wife and their clever grandson. 'Would you like to go to St. Andrews, as the minister says?' he asked the

boy, and Finlay replied: 'I'm good at books. First in Euclid and Cicero.'

'To what purpose?' the old warrior asked in real perplexity.

i don't know,' Finlay said honestly. 'I like to play about with figures and words.'

'What say you, Mhairi?' Macnab asked his wife.

i have always thought he was a lad of promise.'

'That means he would make a good drover.'

'I would,' Finlay said eagerly. 'I could drove the cattle to Falkirk for the Tryst this year.'

'You?' the old man asked in wonder, for he had not perceived his grandson as ready for such responsibility. 'How old are you, lad?'

'Twelve.'

'At twelve I had not left the glen,' the chieftain said.

'But you had fought the Campbells . three times,' his wife reminded him.

'So you would like to go to the college?' the old man asked.

'I am so minded.'

As the summer progressed, Macnab ruefully conceded that he would never again trudge over the far hills to Falkirk, and that it was time for his grandson to do so: 'Besides, there will be older friends to help when it comes time to bargain with those clever buyers from the south,' and once this big question was settled, the old man agreed that Finlay should keep some of the money from the cattle sale and proceed to the University of St. Andrews. By July all was settled, and Ninian Gow was writing letters to a friend of his in the old gray city:

1 am sending you a fine wee laddie, Finlay Macnab of Glen Lyon, age thirteen when he arrives. Take him under your wing and tutor him for the University, which he should be ready to enter at age fourteen. He has completed Euclid, is knowledgeable in Sallust and is capable in all ways.

Nina Gow

'Post scriptum: I am converting heathen Highlanders into good Christians at such a rate that John Knox must be smiling

The last half of July and all of August were spent in preparing Finlay for the arduous task of droving his cattle to the great market at Falkirk, nearly eighty long miles to the southeast over steep mountain crests and down beautiful glens. The boy practiced with Rob, the deerhound-collie who would do most of

the work; whistled signals would direct the dog to round up strays and keep the herd moving forward, but at times it would seem as if the dog was directing the boy and not the other way around, so quick and intelligent was this remarkable animal.

Meanwhile, the boy's grandmother had been gathering the things she must supply: the strong cheese, the beef strips dried in the sun, the oatcakes hardened on the windowsill, and particularly the great kilt in which her grandson would live for many weeks. It was not one of those townsman's kilts, little more than a pleated skirt tied at the waist; this was a Highlander's fighting-droving kilt, a huge spread of patterned fabric—-crimson-green-red for the Macnabs—which covered the body from head to heel, with much left over to form a cape in case of storms.

When his grandmother had it trimmed to her taste, she threw it on the ground, spread it out, and commanded her grandson: 'Lie down.' And when he placed himself prone upon it, so that it reached from his ankles to well beyond his head, she showed him how to roll about and dress himself in it, not rising to his knees until it was properly fitted, and then to a full standing position so that he could fasten the overage about his waist, to be unwound when needed. A Scots Highlander dressed in such a kilt carried twenty pounds of tartan, a kind of ambulatory tent, which kept him safe in all weathers.

When he stood before her, wrapped in this cloak of honor, she thought: What a handsome lad he is, with the flashing blue eyes of his clan. And his youthful eyes did have that fire, for in the eighth and ninth centuries the Vikings of Norway had guided their longships to the fjords of western Scotland, raiding and ravishing, and many Highlanders carried the strain of those heroic days: stalwart bodies, placid dispositions until aroused, and always, scintillating eyes like those of the Macnabs.

'You're ready,' his grandmother said.

Toward the end of August the first drovers appeared in the glen, and all stopped by the home of Macnab of Dunessan to exchange greetings and information. They were from the Outer Islands mostly, men from Lewis and Harris and the Uists who had shipped their cattle by boat across the Minch to the Isle of Skye, and then through the perilous open fjord which separated Skye from the mainland. Any drover from the Outer Isles who reached Glen Lyon with his herd intact was already a hero.

These Islanders were an uncouth band, speaking Gaelic with just enough words of mainland Scots to enable them to function. Short, dark, somber in mien and rude in manner, they terrified the normal mainland Scot, who said: 'Two Skye men passing through

a glen are worse than three floods or four thunderstorms. And a Uist man is worse.' They stole cattle, robbed cottages, terrorized daughters, and left scars wherever they touched. They were the scourge of Scotland, the Island drovers who knew not God.

But in Glen Lyon they met their match, for the various Macnabs, long inured to battle, were themselves some of the most polished cattle thieves in Scottish history. It was said of the present Macnab, that sanctimonious, churchgoing scoundrel, that 'he loves animals so tenderly that he feels it his responsibility to take into his care any strays that wander his way.' Many a Skye drover entering Glen Lyon with one hundred and twenty-one animals departed with only one hundred and eighteen, and it was frequently remarked at how good a cowman Macnab was, since his own herd increased so steadily.

'A good dog and a quick eye make the drover,' Macnab often said, and he had both, plus an ingredient he did not specify: he was fearless in the prosecution of his trade and took great risks in augmenting his herd. On the cattle trails he had lived with two dirks hidden in the folds of his kilt, and he had never been afraid to use them. He now quietly handed a pair to his grandson, with the admonition: 'If you ever touch your dirk in a fight, be prepared to use it all the way.'

He would be placing eighty-one head of cattle in his grandson's care, perhaps more if things went well before departure, and since it would have been idiotic to trust so much of value to so young a lad, even though he was a husky fellow well able to care for himself, he was sending along a helper, Macnab of Corrie, who, with his two dogs, had made the trip many times before. They would be twelve days on the trail, up hill and down, and they would expect to deliver to Falkirk Tryst a full eighty-one head, plus such others as they might casually acquire en route.

In the meantime, Ninian Gow instructed young Finlay as to what he must do when the cattle had been delivered and sold: 'You are to leave Falkirk and walk directly to Dunfermline, keeping your money well hidden in your kilt without mentioning it to anyone. From Dunfermline, head straight to Glenrothes and then to Cupar, from which it will be an easy walk to St. Andrews and the university, where you will inquire for Eoghann McRae, with whom you will live and who will tutor you for entrance to the university. Above all, lad, be prudent, for this is your entry into the world of learning. Make it a good one.'

That was the miracle of Scotland. From the most impoverished hovels, from the farthest glen, dedicated ministers and schoolteachers identified boys of promise and goaded them into getting

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an education at the universities in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh and, above all, St. Andrews, those centers of learning whose scholars down through the centuries have done so much to alter and improve the English-speaking world. Unable to find employment in Scotland, they emigrated to London and Dublin and New York. They made Canada and Jamaica and Pennsylvania civilized places in which to live; they started colleges in America and universities in Canada. A thousand enterprises in England would have failed without the assistance of the bright lads from Glen Lyon and the Moor of Rannoch and lone shielings on Skye. They would govern India and South Africa and New Hampshire, and wherever they went they would leave schools and hospitals and libraries, for they were the seeds of greatness and of civilization.