To Dance at the Bridal

Roderick Bethune

Description

Young Lauchlin Mackinnon has to leave the family tenement to seek his fortune. After finding and losing various employments in 19th Century Edinburgh he is encouraged to join the army and becomes involved in the British re-capture of the Cape of Good Hope. However, Vice Admiral Home Popham chooses to disregard his orders and invades the Spanish Vice-royalty of the River Plate. Lauchlin has many adventures in what is to become Argentina and his romantic involvement with the beautiful daughter of a leading colonist leads him to choose between returning or staying.

Sujets

• Britain
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse UK
• Date de parution: 23 septembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781728375083
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

To Dance at the Bridal
By
Roderick Bethune

O Come ye in Peace here, or Come ye in War,
Or to dance at our Bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?


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© 2022 Roderick Bethune. All rights reserved.
 
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Published by AuthorHouse 09/27/2022
 
ISBN: 978-1-7283-7509-0 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-7283-7510-6 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-7283-7508-3 (e)
 
 
 
 
 
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Contents
Chapter 1 (April 1803)
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7 (May 1805)
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31

To Dance at The Bridal
by
Roderick Bethune
A young Scot’s involvement in Commodore Home Popham’s decision to invade the Spanish empire of the River Plate in 1806

Dedication:
To the myriads of Mackynouns, McInnons, MacKinnings, McKinnons or Mackinnons, together with all other Scots and Irish forced to leave their homes in the 18 th & 19 th Centuries - emigrating to the Americas, North and South - this book is dedicated with respect and affection.

Author’s Note:
This is a work of fiction – that is to say that the principal character, Lauchlin Mackinnon, is largely a product of my imagination. But, being set in a factual environment, much of the background is inevitably true and peopled by those who really existed. Britain did invade the River Plate on three occasions early in the 19 th Century; Admiral Popham was Court-Martialled after the first invasion and General Whitelocke after the last; General Beresford went on to become Governor of Madeira and, eventually, Marshal of Portugal, serving under the Duke of Wellington; Juan Manuel Rosas was almost certainly the largest cattle baron at that time and became Governor of Buenos Aires. He almost certainly bore a large responsibility for the clearing of the indigenous people from cattle lands. He died in exile, at Southampton, in 1857.
The sketch in the cover design is from a contemporary source believed to have been present at the battle for Buenos Aires.

Postlude: (June, 1982)
Miguel Mackinnon is frightened. He has never been so frightened. As a twenty year-old conscript in the Argentine army he had expected to serve for eighteen months or two years in an office close to his home in Buenos Aires. After all, that was how his brother and many of his school-friends had spent their call-up. Not a pleasant experience and certainly an interruption to his education, but one that was more often boring than frightening.
Now, in total darkness, he finds himself in freezing, horizontal sleet hiding behind a rock with shells and gunfire making the very peat tremble around him. He is aware of some irony in being attacked by red devils from England! Although born on an Argentine farm, his grandfather had possessed a British passport; Miguel has no idea what took his ancestors to the country in the first place.
He puts down a comforting hand, but Carlos Caceres is dead. Carlos was the radio operator whom Miguel was ordered to help, heaving the weighty instruments to the top of Mount Longdon, which they were told was the highest point in all the Malvinas. Miguel’s role was to protect Carlos and ensure that nobody interfered with his messages to base. The messages were initially scribbled out by Teniente Tandil but he made himself scarce as soon as the bombardment started. Not that Miguel was any good as a guardian – he had only visited the shooting range once in his training and fired a total of five rounds.
The bombardment is easing. Can he make a break for it? There are figures appearing in front; they are firing from the hip; he leaves the rock and starts running through the gorse. A jolt and agonizing pain in his head. He manages two more paces before blessed unconsciousness.
Chapter 1 (April 1803)
“Lauchlin! Where are ye? Still in yer pit you lazy shirker?”
Shocked into full wakefulness, he stumbles from his straw mattress in the corner to put on the outer clothing he removed last night. It is soon done. He sleeps in his thick shirt and under-things. The damp cold bites deeply. The only light – dark and grey even though it is nearly May - comes through the small window which rattles in the wind but fails to keep out all of the fierce rain cascading against it. Ewen, an older lad in the tenements bursts into the room.
“You sluggish idler! There’s nae wood for the stove – get doon and fetch it up!”
From the other corner he hears his grandfather begin to moan and chunter his displeasure:
“Who let him in here? He has no right and no business speaking to a Mackynoun like that! Stand up for yourself, laddie – remember who y’are!”
“It’s all right Grandf’er, he’s only shouting because the stove needs wood.”
Blundering down the communal steps of the two-storey Port Glasgow housing, he smiles bitterly to himself over the old man’s words. In his dotage now, he has the memory of a house-mite for recent events; but for the past he can recall the finest detail. Lauchlin never tires of hearing how nearly sixty years ago the family had influenced support for Prince Charles Edward’s march into England to regain the crown that properly belonged to him. Lauchlin knows that his Great grandfather, Ailpin, had helped the Prince in his escape after the ignominious defeat on Culloden Moor and been nearly hanged for his loyalty. Only his advanced age had saved him. After a year in an English prison he had been allowed back to his old country. But it had all been changed. ‘Stinking Billy’ – the butcher Cumberland, had destroyed the clans. The Mackynouns who had been ‘Lords of the Isles’ were banned from Mull and the islands around Skye and been forced, like so many others, to the mainland where they had made their way to the developing settlements along the Clyde river at Port Glasgow. They still keep the old man’s kilt in the Mackynoun tartan. Treated almost like a religious Icon, it is hidden away. Wearing the kilt is now forbidden except, on occasions for the army that serves King George.
Outside he battles against the driving rain as he tries to collect enough dry wood to feed the communal stove upstairs. Normally a thick piece of sail-canvas covers the small stock of timber but the wind has disturbed it and most of the wood is now damp.
He pokes around the lower levels taking out the drier pieces. ‘More smoke than heat for a while’, he thinks, knowing he will get the blame. He fixes the sailcloth in place; he needs to hurry as his job at the wool-yard demands a prompt arrival at six. In about a year, after his sixteenth birthday, he will be required to arrive an hour earlier, but his wages should increase to six shillings a week. He knows the rent on their bare room is seven shillings and sixpence. The earnings of his father and two brothers mean that his mother has an easier time than most in obtaining food at the market. The Macleans who have the large ground floor room had tried last winter to keep a pig but the rent-collector had found it and taken it away. It was a cruel act – the animal did no harm. Lauchlin wonders if there is some Irish blood in the collector’s veins. There do seem to be more of them around these days.
It takes him three trips up and down the steps to fill the wood scuttles. He takes two spoonfuls of porage at each trip. His mother wipes his mouth after the last load. His other duties include checking the water in the high sump that feeds the basin in the communal kitchen. This is pumped up from a well serving a number of households. At this time of year the well is full and he knows he must do some thirty pulls at the lever to obtain the right volume. In August it will require twice that but the resistance will be lower. Until two or three years ago they used this water for all purposes, including drinking, but so many people were becoming ill that the Procurators’ Office imposed a ban on drinking it. Now they have to rely on John Hankey and his cart carrying water from his farm. He sells it at a ha’penny a stoup. The trouble is that his “stoup” varies – sometimes it fills two of his mother’s big pitchers, at other times it is an inch below the lip.
After completing the requisite number of pumps, Lauchlin knows that there is enough water for the essential washing and boiling. But his mother cannot let him escape without one final admonition:
“You should get yourself up with Fingal and Stuart,” she shakes her head, referring to his brothers, “then you’d have time to let your breakfast settle and we could do more of your letters and reading. I want ye