Highland Ballad

Highland Ballad

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Title: Highland Ballad
Author: Christopher Leadem
Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6591] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on December 26,
2002]
Edition: 10

Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK,
HIGHLAND BALLAD ***

HIGHLAND BALLAD Approximately 65,000 Words (Historical
Fiction)
Copyright 1995 by Christopher Leadem,
All rights reserved. ISBN: 0-88100-086-8
Aragorn Books
www.aragornbooks.com

HIGHLAND BALLAD
For Natasha
Part One: A Lingering Flame

One
The red sun rose slowly, achingly across the high Scottish moor,
touching with melancholy gold the patching hoar frost and purple heath.
For this was a land of pain, and stark beauty, and restless dream. Here
the spirits of the dead walked by night through grim castles of shadow
and dust, their glory long past. Here the spirits of the living grieved by
day for a proud and chivalrous time forever lost.
For now the English ruled the land. The battle of Culloden was three
years lost and Bonnie Prince Charles, the drunken fool in whom they
had placed such hope, was living in exile in France. For what then had
the pride of Highland manhood shed their blood, leaving behind them
the heart-broken wives, aging fathers, and uncomprehending child
sisters? Was it to see the Lord Purceville establish his thieving court at
the ancestral home of the MacPhersons? Was it to pay hard tribute in
grain and goods which could not be spared, to an Empire already
bloated and corrupt?
None felt the pangs of lost promise more deeply than young Mary Scott,

aged sixteen years, with a future as uncertain as the fretting October
wind. Her father had died before she could say his name, leaving their
estate in the keeping of guardians until Michael came of age. Now it
was completely lost, their legacy ruined. Now she lived with her
mother and aging aunt in the fading cottage that had once belonged to
the chief steward, all that remained of the family property. It was
neither beautiful nor poetic; but it was warm, and for the time at least,
safe from the hungry eyes of soldiers. The dangers to a young girl in an
occupied land need hardly be detailed.
And there were other dangers as well.
On this morning, as on many others, she walked slowly down the
narrow, winding path to the gravesite of her clan. Bordered by scrub
oak and maple, alone in its silent dell, it was a place removed from time,
hallowed, and to her, sacred. For here, among the stones of four
hundred years of Stuart knights, lay the body of her beloved, her soul.
Her brother. Brushing back a long lock of raven hair, she stepped
furtively towards the mound of earth that was like an iron door between
them.
Michael James Scott 1719 --- 1746 He died a man's death, fighting for
his home.
The words on the small tombstone had always seemed to her a
blasphemy, the hurried cutters finding it more important to speak of
patriotism than to give the date of his birth. These trite, inadequate
words were all that future generations would ever know of him. They
could never see him as he had been in life---the shock of curling,
golden hair, the fierce and penetrating sapphire eyes. He had been
strong and stubborn like all his blood, but with a sudden tenderness that
had long ago stolen her heart. Her friend, brother and father. And in the
most secret depths of her heart, her lover as well.
One image of him remained indelibly carved in her memory.
He stood silhouetted against the open door of the shepherd's hut, in
which they had taken shelter from a sudden, violent downpour. The
play of lightnings beyond flashed his tall, muscular form into brilliant
lines out of the grey. He stood defiant, legs