“My family have all passed on, but I’ve a wish in me to see the place where I was a boy before going back to the seas again. And I have a wish to get on with it, for I have a feeling the Spanish will be mounting an attack upon us.
“Now you know my story, and as for you, I am helping you to go to relatives in the Highlands. Does it please you, this story?”
“Aye, and why not? It answers questions simply enough.”
“One thing more, lad. There are those about who are no lovers of the Irish, so if I were you I’d be the son of a Scottish soldier who was killed in Ireland, fighting for the Queen, and you were raised there. Now you are returning to your own.”
We walked on into the morning, and Angus Fair talked of Ireland, repeating some of the tales I’d had first from my father. “Ah, lad, the trouble with the Irish is that they fight best when fighting for others, and among themselves there is no common cause, no unity. In all the lands of Europe you will find Irishmen, often in command, and always fighting well while their own poor country is occupied by the British.
“Mind you, lad, I am not a hater as some are, but a patriot, a lover of his own land. I wish for its freedom, but do not blind myself to its faults. If the British would stay in their own land we’d love them well, for we’ve much in common, but freedom we must have. How we will use it … ah, ’tis another question, lad, another question!”
As we walked he rambled on, talking of many things, and I listened, having much to learn. He was a man who had traveled, had known many lands of men under all sorts of conditions.
The clouds were low and gray, heavy with rain. About us the grass was a deep, deep green and the distant mountains were somber. We walked steadily on, each with a stout staff for easier walking. Twice we passed farmsteads not far off the road, houses of gray stone walls and thatched roofs. Once a big dog stood watching us until we were safely by, but it did not bark.
Soon we saw no more people, no dogs, no distant houses, but only the stark and empty grassland and then the forest. It was a lonely land, and we talked not at all, each alert for we knew not what. Out here a man seemed to stand out, and there seemed no place to hide.
“Yet there is,” Angus replied, “you have simply always to be alert. You and me, we must never forget that. So look about you … there are low places in the ground, rocks and sometimes clumps of heather. The thing to remember is to lie still … movement draws the eye.”
And I did look, and from time to time did see places where a man might hide, if he lay still.
Now the land took on a wilder aspect and there was almost continual rain. It was with relief that we saw a cluster of houses before us, and smoke rising from several of them.
“There’s a bit of an inn,” Angus Fair said. “If the weather were not so gloomy I’d say to pass on, but we’ll stop. A warm meal will do us well.”
He lifted the latch and swung open the door, and we stepped in. As we shook off the rain and looked up, we knew we had done the wrong thing.
There were five men in the room, three of them armed like soldiers.
It was too late to draw back. To return to the night in such weather was enough to arouse suspicion of us.
” ‘Tis a heavy dew,” Angus commented. “A good night for a draught of ale and a warm fire.”
They did not smile, but simply stared at us, nothing friendly in their eyes.
13
There was no place by the fire so we went to a rough board table and sat down on benches that faced it on either side. Angus pulled his bench around so he could sit with his back toward the wall and his face to the door. I sat around the corner of the table from him, facing the fire and the men who sat before it.
It was a good blaze, but there was chill at our backs, and not from the cold only.
This was a wild land where we now were, and few were the travelers who ventured to cross it. There were outlaws in the forest or lurking in the glens for unwary travelers, but these were not such.
Mine host brought us a slab of meat, good venison, too. Along with it he brought a loaf and then he drew two mugs of ale.
The inn, if such it might be called, was ancient. The stone-flagged floor underfoot was worn and polished by much use and a corner of the wall was old, too. Someone at a much later date had added the rest.
Angus stamped a foot on the floor. “Old!” he said.
“Aye,” the innkeeper said. “Roman, they say. Not many came this far. They found the Scots too hard for them. Too hard by far.”
We ate, straining our ears to make out the muttered conversation between the others. From time to time they looked at us, but in no friendly or curious fashion. Rather, it was suspicion. We could make out nothing of what they were saying, but when the chance came I eased my staff across my knees, ready to hand.
One whom we took to be a soldier stared hard at us and then said suddenly, ” Tis not many come this way.”
Angus wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Aye! Nor would I, but the lad returns home, and I am showing him the way. It was a promise made in an ill-thought moment,” he added, smiling. “His father did me a kindness more than once, and now he is gone.”
“Dead?”
“Aye! Killed in the Irish wars. He was a Scot whom they settled there, and there the lad was born and raised until his family were killed. We escaped together, and now when he is safely among his own folk, I shall off to the sea again.”
“You be a sailorman?”
“Sailed with Hawkins. Two voyages to the Indies, trading and fighting, and the last time a prisoner in Spain. But Sir John looks after his own and ransomed me out, and now when I’ve taken the lad north I shall be off to join him again.” He paused, gulping down a swallow of ale. “There’s talk that the Spanish are readying a great fleet of ships to go against England, so the fighting may be here, along our own coasts.”
This was news indeed, and for a while we were forgotten in the talk bandied back and forth. Many in Scotland were not at all friendly to England but most of them liked the Spanish even less. Yet the comment had done what Angus intended and taken their minds from us.
They argued the effects of such an attack. Some thought Spain was too mighty for England to stand against, but others mentioned Hawkins, Martin Frobisher, and mariners noted for their skill at sea fighting.
“There’s another, too,” Angus Fair suggested. “The name is Drake, Francis Drake. He sailed with Hawkins and made a name for himself among Hawkins’s men. He is a man to be reckoned with.”
“Ah,” the innkeeper said gloomily, “England is but a small nation, and Spain is the greatest upon the world’s seas. England will have no chance, none at all!”
We finished our meal, and I listened to the fury of the wind outside and the rain lashing against the shutters. It was a bitter bad night without, and the walls and fire were a comfort.
We finished our meal and I looked longingly at the floor near the fire, but knew it was not for me. Others had come first. Yet I drew my coat about me and huddled closer, fighting the chill at my back.
From outside there suddenly came a clatter and a banging and then the door was thrown open in a gust of howling wind that set the flames a-roaring on the hearth. In the wide open door stood a huge man wrapped in a sheepskin cloak, the leather side outside, and a great fur cap now sodden with rain. He had a red beard and bushy brows of red, and there was a great scar on his cheekbone partly hidden by the beard. He stepped into the room, and even against that mighty wind he slammed the door so it shook the house. Without a word he strode to the fire. The men pulled back abruptly, although he said no word. He swept off his sheepskin and dropped it over a cask in the corner.