Jamie MacLeod (The Highland Collection Book #1)

Michael Phillips, Judith Pella

Description

Shepherd lass Jamie MacLeod has lived with her grandfather on the wild, beautiful mountain of Donachie ever since her parents died. But she dreams of greater things and grander places. With nothing but her faith to guide her, Jamie sets off for the horizon on a quest to rise above her humble beginnings and become a lady of distinction.

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 17 mai 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441229816
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 1987 by Michael Phillips and Judith Pella
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-0-7642-1860-6
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Eric Walljasper
Judith Pella is represented by The Steve Laube Agency
Dedication
to Jeannie Pella Storbakken Our Mutual Friend and Sister Whom We Both Love
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Introduction
Part I: Gilbert MacLeod
1. Evening Vigil
2. A Dream of More
3. The Ebony Stallion
4. Lundie’s Proposal
5. Parting
Part II: Finlay MacLeod
6. The Shepherd
7. Sunset
8. The Old Trunk
9. The Lass of the Mountain
10. Another Farewell
11. Winter
12. The Sailor
13. Rescue
Part III: Aberdeen
14. Sadie Malone
15. First Days in the City
16. A Row on Hogmanay
17. Broken Dreams
18. The Vicar’s Wife
19. Lessons
20. Another Change
Part IV: Aviemere
21. A New Home
22. The Master of Aviemere
23. An Afternoon’s Excursion
24. Edward Graystone
25. Guests
26. Two Conversations
27. A Midnight Intruder
28. Father and Son
29. The First Flowers of Spring
30. Candice Montrose
31. A Journey into the Past
32. An Unexpected Visitor
33. Brotherly Strife
34. Midnight Encounter
35. Rumors
Part V: Robbie Taggart
36. The Sailor Returns
37. The Call of Love
38. Dreams
39. Andrew
40. Thoughts
41. A Surprise Visit
42. The Laird and the Sailor
Part VI: Jamie MacLeod
43. Pledges
44. A Piece of the Puzzle
45. Donachie
46. The Laird of the Mountain
47. The Unmasking
48. Family Secrets
49. Derek Graystone
50. The Final Return
About the Authors
Books by Michael Phillips
Books by Judith Pella
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Introduction
This story of a Scottish shepherd lass growing up on a wild but beautiful, untamed but silent Highland mountain called Donachie typifies all men and women. As Jamie MacLeod (pronounced MacLoud) grows, she begins to look into the distance, scanning the horizon for what life can offer. The only hope she knows of to validate her own existence is to fulfill her father’s dying dream—that somehow she rise from her humble beginnings, the poverty and restrictions of her upbringing, to become a lady, to be someone in the world.
Jamie’s quest is a universal one. We have all climbed to the top of our own mountains, gazed into the distance, and wondered, “What’s out there?” We all long to “make something” of ourselves. Shackled by muddled notions of what constitutes a fulfilled life, our roving eyes scan the horizon for the distant sunrise, for the greener grass on the other side of some ethereal fence.
But the tragic fact is that we often seek the roots of our own identity, our own personhood, outside the one place where true personhood begins.
Equipped for a joyful life of communion with God—with His creativity built into our natures, with His love and goodness surrounding us in the world He made, and with the peace of His Son available to our souls—we yet spend fruitless years looking elsewhere for that which we think will satisfy this deep longing.
Our eyes look “out there” for something which can be found only by turning upward and inward. In vain we pursue the meaningless search for things that can never be, when all the time true life is before us, around us, and within us—life from God himself! We try to make ourselves men and women of stature in the world’s eyes, failing to understand that the only stature of real and eternal value is to grow in wisdom and to find “favor with God.”
He is not as concerned with the horizons of “over there” as He is with nurturing and maturing our characters right where we stand. When we come to the end of the search and grasp at last where it has led us, the question is: are we willing to “lay down our arms” and surrender to the One whose hand has been guiding, urging, encouraging our steps all along? The search is not one which can find an answer in the streets and byways of the world or in a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in Aberdeen. Only in listening to that “still, small voice” of God in our hearts will we discover the fulfillment of our heart’s dream.
This, then, is the tale of Jamie’s quest for ladyhood, a journey leading from the land of her beginnings to the city of dreams, and then back to the source from whence it all had sprung. The lure of adventure and romance tug at her, but in the end Jamie finds true love, the peace of the God of her fathers, and the essence of her own personhood where she least expects it.
This first book in “The Highland Collection” is a story of true personhood as revealed through the eyes of God, not of men. The complete picture of personhood will be seen in this series of books through the three essential ingredients which comprise it: manhood, womanhood, and sonship. Personhood—the relationship of God’s created beings to himself as Creator and to themselves—cannot be grasped one-dimensionally, but only as manhood, womanhood, and sonship are clearly understood in their relationship to their Maker. Book One, Jamie MacLeod: Highland Lass , asks, “What is true womanhood? What does it mean to stand before the God who made me as the complete woman He created me to be?”
As you walk by Jamie’s side, enjoying the mystical beauties of Scotland’s mountains and valleys, look through her eyes as she searches the horizons of life for her own true person. But as she comes to the end of her quest, look through her eyes into your own heart. There you may be surprised to discover, as she did, that the meaning to life for which you have been searching has been in your heart from the very beginning; that for which you have longed has been within reach.
Jamie’s granddaddy read to her from his Book, “Seek and ye shall find. . . . If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him. . . .” By looking too far into the distance, our eyes will be out of focus to see His ever-near presence on our own personal Donachie—right beside us.
The door to being a fulfilled person is inside, not on distant horizons. As Jamie discovers, womanhood before God is the most intimate discovery a woman created in the image of God can make in the quiet of her own heart. For He promises, “Lo, I am with you always.”
Michael Phillips Judith Pella
Part I Gilbert MacLeod
1 Evening Vigil
The thin moon inched its way toward the top of the night. The silvery hues from its reflected brilliance cast ghostly shadows over the moorland below. Later in the month it would shine out boldly upon this lonely land, but in its first quarter it could barely illuminate the humble cottage standing silently in the ethereal glow, as if awaiting some change which was at hand. But even the light of a new moon was sufficient to reveal the stout stone walls and massive chimney and the cobbled pathway leading to the sturdy oaken door. It was hardly the home of a gentleman squire, yet there was an air of substance to the place—if it did not exactly emulate affluence, at least there had been a brave, though perhaps faltering, step in that direction.
Inside, the cottage seemed to show its truer face. All was simple and coarse, even by the standards of the 1860s, but it was tidy and clean. A dark-haired girl was alternately stirring and blowing at the struggling peat fire on the hearth, encouraging the fading embers once more to life and warmth. Her pure face and wide, innocent eyes, seen in the flickering dance of an occasional flame, would have given a stranger the impression that she was no more than four. Yet she carried herself about the place as if she were twelve; in reality she was seven. Rising from the fire, she returned to her wooden stool and, with her elbows propped on the rough pine table, rested her chin in her tiny hands. After a few moments her eyes drooped, but she quickly jarred herself awake, refusing to fail in her evening vigil.
Many nights she would sit thus, alternately tending the fire, dozing off, staring, entranced, into the red-orange glow of the single candle in the room, and glancing out the window at every sound—waiting ever for that one sound which would light her lips with a smile and her emerald green eyes with a sparkle more radiant than the combined efforts of fire and candle. Though small for her age, with thin, frail-looking limbs and pale skin, there was a certain upward tilt of her chin, a firmness about her lips that spoke of strength and determination well beyond her tender years.
It was difficult for any amount of tenacity and pluck to keep a child awake so late, however. Her day had begun before dawn, and a steady flow of necessary chores had followed. After milking came the preparation of a hearty Scottish breakfast of oatmeal porridge with cream. Then had come washing up and sweeping out the cottage. The cows had to be taken out to pasture, and today had also been laundry day. The day had been warm, so she had been able to hang the garments outside, and had only just retrieved them as the purple-pink dusk gave way to the descending night.
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