Robbie Taggart (The Highland Collection Book #2)

Michael Phillips, Judith Pella

Description

After his love for Jamie MacLeod was refused, Robbie Taggart left the Scottish Highlands to seek fortune and adventure on the high seas. But when military discipline becomes too constraining for him, he resigns and takes a position on a freighter bound for China. From London to Shanghai, will Robbie's invincible attitude toward life finally be his undoing?

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 17 mai 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441229823
• 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 978-1-4412-2982-3
The songs “The Bonny Sailor” and “Ratcliffe Highway” are from Real Sailor Songs , John Ashton, ed. 1891. Reissued by Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1972.
The song “Adieu, Sweet Lovely Nancy” is taken from the collection of songs, The Valiant Sailor , ed. by Roy Palmer, Cambridge University Press, 1973.
The song in the last chapter is Shanty Hymn by Bob Cull and is from his album “Last Horizon.”
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 every man who is open enough and courageous enough to search for his manhood on the non-conforming path of God’s course for his life. And to the women—mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters—who are such an integral part of that journey.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Introduction
Part I: Royal Navy
1. “Doon Frae the Highlands”
2. Out of Kilter
3. Final Insult
4. Benjamin Pike
5. A Surprise Meeting
6. Dreams and Delusions
7. Decisions Weighed
Part II: Sea Tiger
8. The Tiger’s Complement
9. Midnight Visitations
10. The Tiger Sets Sail
11. Harmony at Sea
12. Accusations
13. Stowaway
14. Designs
15. A Stop at Lisbon
16. Calm
17. The Squall
18. South Past the Cape
19. The Vicar’s Attempt
20. Calcutta
21. An Angel Unaware
22. The Call of the Highlands
23. Typhoon on the China Sea
24. Unscheduled Layover
25. Sea Pirates
26. Attempted Negotiations
27. Sobering Questions
28. They That Go Down to the Sea in Ships
29. Final Port of Call for the Sea Tiger
Part III: China
30. The Mission
31. The Rabbit and the Swan
32. Dinner at the Compound
33. An Unexpected Witness
34. In the House of Chang Hsu-yu
35. A Family Matter
36. The Vicar’s Fall
37. Sunday at the Mission
38. The Young Missionary
39. Through the Waterways
40. An Inauspicious Ending
41. Flight of the Phoenix
42. The Lieutenant and the Warlord
43. The Sailor and the Monk
44. Man of Faith
45. Questions and Answers
46. Tale From the Past
47. Interlude
48. Evil Schemes
49. Fools Rush In
50. Where Angels Fear to Tread
Part IV: Awakening
51. Changes
52. The Hillside Again
53. Letter From Afar
54. Expectation
55. Fulfillment
56. The Call on a Man’s Heart
57. Whither Thou Diest
Part V: Return
58. A Man and His Daughter
59. Stormy Waters
60. How the Mighty Have Fallen
61. A Friend in Need
62. God’s Power Made Perfect In Weakness
63. The Fanning of the Flames
64. The Passing of the Torch
65. Last Battle Against Old Enemies
66. Out of the Depths of the Past
67. Not My Will, Lord
68. Reunions
69. Homecoming
70. Looking Ahead
71. Lead Me Where I’m A-goin’
Afterword
About the Authors
Books by Michael Phillips
Books by Judith Pella
Back Ads
Introduction
When Robbie Taggart stepped out of a snowstorm onto the pages of Jamie MacLeod’s story, we knew very little about him. Yet immediately we were intrigued by the fellow. As bits and pieces of his personality and roots gradually were revealed, the better we came to know him. We really could not help liking him! It was not long before we realized—this man’s story has to be told.
Of course, at that point we knew only fragments of how that story might develop. Through Jamie’s eyes we learned a great deal. She helped us see Robbie from new perspectives and gave us a broader picture of what made him tick. Yet we sensed there was more to it even than Jamie realized. Robbie Taggart soon became so real and compelling that we had to find out what became of him after he and Jamie parted! Thus we donned our boots and caps, struggled to firm up our sea legs under us, and set out to accompany this most fascinating Scottish sailor.
Robbie had often confessed to Jamie his itch for new adventures, and in the story of this part of his life, he winds up in the mysterious China of the 1880’s. The future awaiting Robbie surprised even us a bit as the pages unfolded. After he had left Jamie at Aviemere, the train took him south and away from the Highlands, leaving Jamie behind to marry Lord Edward Graystone. Robbie pondered his future during those first days. Yet even in the midst of his uncertainty and soul-searching so uncharacteristic of his previous attitudes about life, it seemed inevitable that sooner or later Robbie’s wanderlust would lead him again to the sea.
How glad we are that we didn’t turn into landlubbers and abandon ship for more familiar territory!
From his first appearance at Sadie Malone’s pub in Aberdeen, we must say we would never have guessed the sort of man Robbie turned out to be. We are thankful that the same Providence leading Jamie to Aviemere and guiding Robbie’s footsteps led us on our travels in the writing of these pages. For the experience has been life-changing for both of us.
No doubt Robbie is such a captivating personality because he is in so many ways typical of all men. His quest to discover just what it means to be a man is a journey all men must make sooner or later. Like Christian of Pilgrim’s Progress , Robbie’s pilgrimage ultimately leads inside himself, to that Source of manhood, whose Voice is so near yet so difficult to hear until the ultimate tests of personhood are required.
Robbie’s open and courageous stand to take the path perhaps less footworn, more difficult to discern in today’s world, has been for us an illuminating adventure far beyond the mere penning of a tale. It is our hope and prayer that as you participate in Robbie’s personal voyage, you will feel the roll of the waves under your legs, the spray of the sea on your face, and, perhaps, the call of the same Voice in your heart.
Michael Phillips Judith Pella
Part I Royal Navy
1 “Doon Frae the Highlands”
Summer had come to the Scottish Highlands, proving it to be the loveliest spot on any of the seven continents. Robbie Taggart knew this better than most men, for he had seen them all. Yet as he stared absently out the window of the speeding train at his final glimpse of the grand countryside of the north, he could not help wondering why he found it so difficult to stay put and settle down in this bonny land of his birth.
But the wide world was always calling—compelling him to move, to wander, to discover distant horizons. And so he followed the divergent paths of the earth, and the seas of the earth—if not searching for adventure, at least with a confidence that adventure would always come to him.
It was a fine June day. There had been snow just one week earlier, and in the distance he could see reminders of it on the receding Grampian Mountains. He thought he could just barely make out Ben Tirran to the northwest. And of course farther west, near the Glen Ey Forest, the peaks would no doubt still have remnants of snow upon them in early July, despite the warmth that had so suddenly followed the last of the spring storms.
Ah, it was indeed a fine land! He could smell the grassy hillsides as the train sped by. Yet the fragrant aroma only reminded him of the nostalgic smell of peat, a smell by which all true Highlanders are bound together in common love, and struggle against the harsh elements that make up the essential character of their homeland.
And was that, after all, why he found himself forever leaving the Highlands, yet forever longing to return? Was it because the land at once drew him by its openness, its vastness, its solitude, its quiet, but at the same time repelled him with its harshness, its unforgiveness, its barrenness? The memory of the peat fire sending out its warmth and aroma through his aunt’s little cottage where he and his family had often stayed during his roving childhood, was a pleasant one. Yet it took the advance of years for him to recall the difficulty with which his aunt had to trudge through snow and bitter cold to bring those peats into the house so that her guests might be warm.
It was indeed a hard land. Living a lifetime on it was not easy. Perhaps that is why he had chosen not to stay.
Yet still he had hesitated when the man he’d spoken with after climbing aboard several hours earlier had asked him, “An’ why are ye come doon frae the Highlands, laddie?”
An answer had not come quickly to his lips. Because perhaps for the first time Robbie Taggart had experienced a sensation which was up till recently utterly foreign to him—that of being unsure of himself.
“Glamis, Cargill, Perth!” called the conductor as he strode through the car, trying to walk with a more important gait than his trim gray uniform occasioned. Pausing beside Robbie, he bent his iron-straight frame slightly and cocked his head with an air of official confidence. “We’ll be in Cargill a good two hours, sir, an’ ye’ll fin’ it worth yer while t’ wait for yer lunch till then—’tis a pub in the toon I highly recommend.”
“Thank you kindly, sir,” replied Robbie with a grin. “I’ll anticipate it wi