Drover

Sullatober Dalton

Description

In the aftermath of Waterloo, even with the help of his intuitive black collie Bruce, Fergus Findlay will need all his guile and courage to rescue Fiona McRae from the drudgery of a failed farm and her father's plans to marry her off to their rich neighbour. He must do this in between droving cattle and sometimes dispossessed crofters from the Moray Firth to Glasgow Markets through flooded rivers with reivers lurking ready to steal and murder.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 29 juillet 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783339075
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page
DROVER
by
Sullatober Dalton



Publisher Information
Published in 2014 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
The right of Sullatober Dalton to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998
Copyright © 2014 Sullatober Dalton
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 without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.



Dedication
This book is dedicated to Ann and Archie



Chapter 1
All thoughts of Kirklea and Fiona McRae were driven from Fergus Findlay’s mind by the flush of anger and frustration that swept over him as he turned the corner of the farmhouse at The Mearns and saw the men standing waiting. Instinctively, his left hand pressed against his waist to confirm the money belt was secure. It was only with a determined effort that he kept his right hand from reaching to his shoulder for the hilt of the broadsword that hung down his back, hidden in the folds of his plaid. Regaining control, he maintained his easy stride as his dark eyes swept over the group. Not wanting to draw attention to himself, he didn’t stare, but his glance saw no out of place finery or sullen aggression that might presage evil intent.
His first reaction had been that the ‘they’ had somehow managed to get ahead of him but as the group showed only mild interest, he told himself there were many reasons, here in the Scottish Highlands in these years after Waterloo, why men would gather together in a farmyard like The Mearns. They could be waiting to be paid, or told what to do, or told to vacate their hill farms to make way for sheep.
After a nod to the men, he followed the track further into the glen.
He wasn’t even sure he was being followed. He’d just been feeling uneasy ever since leaving Glasgow on his way north to Dornoch and home. To get to Kirklea to visit Fiona he had to make this detour up the Loch Lomond track yet the feeling of someone following persisted. This last drove had been his most profitable and maybe it was just the money belt and being on his own that made him worry. He’d sent the hired drovers away north with the garrons, sturdy highland ponies, well suited to their work of carrying goods and food on the drove and he was now alone and on foot.
When he’d first felt this suspicion of being followed, just as a precaution, he’d followed a track that led into a clump of trees and watched. He’d seen nothing.
Still wary, as he neared Loch Lomond, he’d taken a long slant down into a valley. He’d walked steadily along the valley floor for a while before increasing his pace so that anyone following would have to hurry and show themselves if they wanted to keep him in sight. He’d looked back but seen no one. He’d then swung suddenly up the opposite slope and over the rim before turning back on himself to watch. Again, he’d seen nothing.
Worrying that by going directly to Kirklea he’d put Fiona in danger, he’d turned abruptly off the Loch Lomond side road on to the cart track that led to The Mearns. The track didn’t stop at the farmhouse but narrowed and continued up the glen and over the hill. If he walked to the head of the glen, where the track zigzagged up the long slope, he’d be able to look back and make a final check for anyone following. From there, he could go on quickly over the hill before turning off sharply into Kirklea’s own glen.
As he walked, his thoughts turned back to Fiona. Would she ask him to stay and eat? Would her father be so hungry for news that he’d get the chance to stay overnight in the barn? Her father rarely moved from the house these days and it was only a matter of time before they’d have to give up Kirklea. Would they last out the two years he needed to accumulate the money he needed to give Fiona the kind of home she deserved? Would Fiona wait another two years without some firm commitment on his part? She had become a handsome young woman, but at nineteen, she was getting old for marriage. He knew of no rivals but that didn’t mean there were none.
Twenty minutes after passing The Mearns, he was at the head of the glen following the track’s back and forth wanderings through tufts of brown grass and patches of gorse as it climbed the long slope.
Having had nothing but a drink from a burn and a handful of oatmeal for mornings, when he reached a spot where of a patch of birch trees on the high side of the track provided a break from a breeze, whose chilly fingers promised an early winter, Fergus stopped to rest and eat. He lifted his plaid from his shoulder and spread it out to air on the tufts of grass that covered the low bank on the top side of the track before sitting down and taking oatcakes and cheese he’d kept for a midday break from his bag.
The spread plaid’s splash of colour would be seen from a long way off by anyone following and, although Fergus relaxed and his thoughts drifted to Fiona and his determination to offer her an alternative to her constant struggle to keep Kirklea afloat, he was watchful in the way of country folk. Was she all right? He’d already paid some of the farm’s debts, nothing like all, but enough to give them meal, flour, and sugar. He’d also paid the few pence she owed the haberdasher, no more than thread and needles, no cloth, so she was patching and darning but not making something new and that worried him. The result was that, despite staying alert for any distant sign of being followed, he hadn’t paid too much attention to events nearer at hand.
As his gaze dropped and he looked down to the fields and the farmhouse in the valley, he saw the men had now been formed into a line. They’d also been joined by a man with a gun and were spread out on either side of him, making a line that hooked round in a shallow crescent, a beater’s line, beating towards the hill.
Fergus wondered idly what they were beating for - a fox, possibly, pheasant or partridge, maybe. The slope was long and, no doubt, they would flush out whatever it was before they came near him.
But what was that?
At first, he thought he’d seen a shadow moving across the hillside, maybe a crow sliding across sun. It had registered, but only as background. Recollection of the shadow came as he caught glimpses of a dark shape angling across to the shelter of a clump of gorse low down on the slope. He realised it was a dog and the dog had come from the field the men were beating in. The dog hadn’t jumped the low dry-stone wall where it would have been seen, but had slid through the gate and must have turned along in the shadow of the wall for fifty yards before risking the half shelter of the grassy clumps that dotted the slope.
Fergus smiled as the black shape came out of the gorse at a lope but lost sight of it when it dropped into a burn. If it had been worrying sheep or cattle, Fergus would deal with it without sympathy but for the moment, like himself, it was an outsider and he focused on its movements.
The dog didn’t show itself again until it turned into the ditch that led along the side of the track up to where Fergus watched. Even then, he’d only seen it because it was moving and he happened to glance down the line of the ditch.
The dog came out of the ditch a few yards from Fergus.
It looked long and deliberately at Fergus, dark eyes staring into dark eyes, assessing each other - then Fergus touched the plaid and the dog slid under it between the grassy tufts and lay still.
When the men finally reached Fergus, a big man in tweeds, the man with the gun, who seemed to be in charge, came forward, uncocking his gun as he came. ‘Have you seen a black collie pass here?’ the man asked.
The florid features reminded Fergus of Black Duncan. While Duncan was one of the farmers for whom he had driven cattle south, the blustering similarity may have had something to do with Fergus’s decision.
‘Nothing has passed me,’ Fergus answered.
‘The black devil has been worrying my sheep,’ the man added. ‘If you see him, send word to me, if you please, Maitland of The Mearns.’
‘We’re no’ certain it’s the one that’s doin’ the worryin’, Mr Maitland,’ suggested one of the men.
Maitland turned on him. ‘I don’t care if I kill every black dog in the district, I’ll stop my sheep being worried.’
‘Are you for turning the place into a sheep farm then?’ Fergus asked.
Maitland turned back to Fergus. ‘I have already started.’
‘And what of the fee farmers?’ Fergus asked.
‘Some already gone, some to go. What’s it to you?’
‘I only asked because I see Morrison there,’ Fergus said, nodding his head towards the group of men waiting for further instructions. ‘He bought some beasts from me the other day and paid a good price for them.’
‘More fool he, he’s one of the next to go,’ said Maitland. He took a more intense look at Fergus then turned his look on the plaid. ‘That’s a nice plaid you have there, is it for sale?’
‘No, it’s not,’ Fergus told him, mildly.
‘It’s a fine bit of material,’ Maitland added, stepping forward and reaching out a hand to feel the tartan.
Fergus leaned forward and grabbed the outstretched hand. Maitland, taken by surprise at the steel like grip, looked up into eyes hard with warning, the slight smile on Fergus’s lips hinting confidence that he could carry out