The Rogues (2 page)

“We canna just let it happen to us,” I said. “Somebody has to tell him no.”

“Who?” Lachlan challenged me. “Would ye say nae to his face?” His green eyes got hard as agates. Just like Da's.

I shrugged.

“He's the laird, Roddy,” said Lachlan, his voice almost a growl. “The land is his, and we're only his tenants. He can do whatever he pleases with us. Toss us out. Burn us out. Bring in new tenants onto the land. And he'll no turn a hair at the doing of it.”

“Not now,” I told him. “Da says the English government's put a stop to that. The laird canna just act as judge over the clan, no anymore. He has to pass our troubles over to the courts.”

Lachlan began to laugh, his cheeks growing as red as his hair. “What the law says and what really happens here in the Highlands is more a matter of money than justice.” That was Da speaking too. What did Lachlan know of money or the law? He was only sixteen, after all, a poor farmer's son. He'd never been farther than the glens.

“Well,
somebody
has to stop him,” I said. Then I added almost slyly, “There's always Bonnie Josie.”

Lachlan turned a bit dreamy at her name. If it wasn't Fiona he was mooning about, it was Bonnie Josie. “Aye, there's always Josie. If anybody can trip him up, she surely can.”

I was about to laugh at the thought when an awful screech made me jump. We whirled around, fists up—and then stared wide-eyed into each other's faces. So—there
were
ghosts haunting this place.

The cry came again, this time more of a squawk.

Lachlan looked about, then his face split in a smile of relief. “Och, it's only a hen!”

Now I saw the bird too, hopping out from behind a bush and pecking the ground. “It must have been left behind.”

“Poor wee orphan,” said Lachlan. “We should take it home with us. Cousin Ishbel would like that.”

I nodded and made a move toward the bird, but it scurried away in a flutter of brown feathers.

“It might take a bit of catching,” I said. But when I looked at Lachlan, expecting a joke, I saw he'd lost interest in the hen. Something else had caught his attention. When I listened, I heard it too, echoing off the far side of the hills. Even at a distance, the sound cut harshly through the morning air.

Barking.

“Dogs,” said Lachlan, all but spitting out the word.

It was a long series of harsh barks, with a purpose. We both knew there was only one kind of dog that made a noise like that: working dogs.

“So—
they're
here,” Lachlan said. “The laird's new tenants. The invaders. To take over the Glendoun hills.”

“Aye,” I replied, suddenly sure we should be going. The burned-out houses had taken on a deadly air, a warning about our own fate. A tremor ran down my spine, but I wouldn't let my brother see my fear. “Lachlan,” I said, as calmly as I could, “should we no be going quickly?”

“Hush!” he answered fiercely, raising a hand. “I want to see this.”

So I stood by his side to be a second witness, my fists clenched to keep my hands from shaking.

Soon enough we heard—alongside the barking of dogs—another sound. This second noise started like the drone of pipes swelling up to a march, but as it came closer it broke up into a ragged chorus of bleating voices.

“It's
them
!” I gasped. And that moment, I felt the impulse to take to my heels, like a man spying a rockfall that's about to bury him. I looked to Lachlan. A muscle twitched in his jaw.

So, I turned and stared up at the hilltop, willing it to be still. But then
they
burst over it, like a white tide cascading down toward us, a hundred of them. No, twice that number and more, their black faces like lumps of coal scattered over a field of snow. Four dogs nipped at their heels.

The invaders
. The ones the laird had imported to supplant us, his own kin. Hundreds and hundreds of English sheep.

2 THE INVADERS

A pair of shepherds came puffing up to the crest of the hill and paused to peer down into the deep glen. They whistled to the dogs and waved their wooden staffs.

The sheep began spreading out over the valley floor. Some stopped to crop the plants, others to sip at the burn. A few wandered down onto the Glendoun pathways, finding their way into the once carefully tended gardens. One ewe and her lamb even got into a cottage and lay down by the broken door.

I had never seen anything like them before. They were big and plump. With their fluffy wool, some of them looked as large as Highland ponies, not at all like our small, scruffy animals.

“Are ye sure these are sheep?” I asked Lachlan. “They look like a different beast altogether.”

“Cheviots, they're called,” Lachlan answered, “after the English hills where they're bred.”

I wondered how he knew that and asked.

“That's what Da says.”

As much as I hated the English sheep taking over our good Scottish land, I couldn't help but be impressed. Their wool was so thick, one of them could have clothed a whole family for a winter. And there was enough mutton on a single ewe to make a feast for a village the size of Glendoun. Fingering my coarse, brown shirt, woven from the untreated wool of our own scrawny breed, I thought that compared to these plump, snowy animals, ours were little better than rats. But they were
our
rats, not foreign invaders brought here to swell a greedy laird's purse.

A sudden anger flared up inside me at the thought of how poor Scottish farming folk were being driven from their land so the laird could let it out to English sheep farmers at double the rent. I began to shake with my anger, like a small birch in a high wind. “This is no place for these fat foreign beasts.”

“What are ye talking about?” Lachlan looked at me, his eyebrows arched up. “Are ye havering, lad?”

I ignored his question and charged at the nearest ewe, whooping and waving my arms over my head. The animal turned and bolted off, followed by three others, all bleating in panic. For all their size they were no braver than the sheep I was used to. Laughing, I turned and called over to Lachlan, “No havering, big brother. Just spoiling for a fight. Let's chase them back where they came from. Show them what true Scotsmen can do when they've a mind to it.”

He nodded, whooped, and flung up his hands, for once being led by me. “Ye're right, Roddy,” he shouted. “We'll show them the English have nae welcome here.” He soon had a group of sheep racing off in terror, threading their way around the golden gorse.

We charged back and forth across the wee town of Glendoun, sending the invaders in all directions. All the while I was the loudest of the two of us, for this time the idea had been mine and I was making the most of it.

Caught up in the rush of it all, I soon forgot why we were doing it. No longer were we brave Scotsmen fighting off intruders. It had become a hilarious game of chasing the sheep one way and the dogs desperately herding them the other. I fell twice, missing the prickly gorse by little more than a hair the first time and into a deep puddle the next. But I laughed and got up again to chase the sheep some more. Sometimes laughter is the best way to fight the thing you fear.

The shepherds shouted angrily from the hilltop and shook their fists, but we just made faces back at them. And now the dogs were bounding about, almost as aimless as hares, barking furiously, trying to keep the flock together.

“If they don't … like it, they can … go back to where they … came from,” I said, speaking in bursts. I was out of breath from all the running and laughing.

Lachlan nodded in agreement, then stopped short. I looked up to see what had silenced him. A horseman had appeared at the top of the hill and was riding down toward us. There was no mistaking him.

“Willie Rood,” said Lachlan, screwing up his face as if the name put a bad taste on his tongue.

William Rood was the new laird's factor, the man who managed the laird's property, collected the rents, and did his dirty work as well. I'd heard he had been a constable down in Glasgow but had lost his job because of his brutality. No one liked him. No one except the laird. But the laird had brought him to the estate to force his will upon the crofting folk. Up until now, that had only meant the brutal collecting of taxes and a beating for anyone late with his rent. Da had missed a beating by a single day and had not stopped talking about it for a full month.

“He's the very devil,” said Lachlan, quoting our da.

“Why is he here?” I said, though in my heart I knew.

Lachlan turned and pointed at the broken town behind us. “To check his handiwork, I warrant.” Which was my guess as well.

When Rood reached us, he reined in and squinted down his nose as if taking aim along the barrel of a musket. He was a burly, pig-faced man with squinty eyes and bristly orange hair that stuck out like patches of thistle from under his hat.

“What are ye young ruffians doing?” he demanded. “This land has been leased out. There's no place for yer kind here.”

Lachlan put his hands on his hips. “And what kind would that be?”

I wondered at his courage.

“Layabouts, idlers, and thieves,” Rood replied harshly. “Get back to yer own farms while ye still can and leave these men to their honest business.” He tilted his head toward the shepherds, who were now strolling down the hillside, whistling to their dogs.

“They can do their honest business back in England,” Lachlan said.

Ma would have put her hand to her heart hearing him speak so, but she'd never scold. However, Cousin Ishbel would make a tching sound, her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Nonsense,” she'd call it. “Haverings.” Da would have had his belt off in a minute to get Lachlan to shut up. But it was as if Rood had loosed a devil inside him. “And they can take their fat sheep with them,” he added.

Then he leapt at a nearby pair of ewes. They jumped back so suddenly, they made Rood's horse rear up in surprise. He clenched the reins and struggled to stay in the saddle until he calmed his mount.

I did the wrong thing then. I laughed.

Everybody in our glen knew that any hint of mockery was like a wasp's sting to Willie Rood. It goaded him into a rage as ferocious as it was sudden. They say he had whipped old Angus Mac for making a joke at his expense within his hearing, old Angus being twice his age and crippled as well. And he'd backhanded Annie Dayton, who was only a daft serving girl in the laird's house, when she called him a “thick-lipped thief” for stealing a kiss from her. Many's the man in our glen who had a tale to tell about Willie Rood, and every one of them a sour story.

So knowing that, why did I laugh? Fear? Embarrassment? Terror? I don't know. It just ran out of me, like milk from a newly calved cow.

Rood turned the red of a sunset, snatched a cudgel out from under his coat, and before I could make a move to dodge it, lashed out at me. I took the blow square on the side of my head and toppled. Pain filled my skull.

“Roddy!” It was Lachlan's voice, though I barely recognized it through the pain.

I felt a hand under my arm as Lachlan helped me get up. My legs were shaky, and when I opened my eyes, the sunlight stabbed like needles. Lachlan held me protectively, one arm around my shoulders, and shook his fist at Rood.

“There was nae call for that,” he protested. “It was only a wee bit of fun. He's only a lad.”

All I could see was a blurred version of Rood brandishing the cudgel. “There's plenty left for ye too, lad or no lad, if ye want to test yer luck.”

The cudgel hovered in the air above us, so huge to my dazed sight, it seemed to fill the whole sky.

“Hold off there, Willie Rood!” It was a woman's voice but as firm as any man's.

I turned at the sound of it. The movement made me dizzy, and I would have fallen over if Lachlan hadn't kept a grip on me. Squinting through the painful light, I saw a young woman slowing her horse to a trot and drawing up alongside Rood. I recognized her, though I'd never seen her this close up before. Never talked to her. For when does a crofter's son speak with the gentry? It was Josephine McRoy—Bonnie Josie—the dead laird's daughter, the new laird's niece. The one that Lachlan sometimes dreamed about when he wasn't dreaming on the Beauty of Glendoun.

We called her Bonnie Josie not just because of her pretty face and shining copper hair. We called her that because she had been championing the poor clansmen of Kindarry since she was old enough to pull at her father's sleeve. But her father—who had been a good laird, if sometimes a dab high-handed—was dead this past year. Her uncle ruled these lands now, and he had no soft heart to appeal to. And Willie Rood was his right-hand man.

Josie glared at the factor.

Rood lowered his cudgel and tucked it away under the flap of his coat. “They were trying to steal the sheep,” he said, his voice oozing and unctuous, like oil rubbed into leather to soften it.

“That hardly seems likely,” said Josie, “not with the shepherds and their dogs so close at hand.” Her hands tightened on her horse's reins till the knuckles turned white. That much I could see.

“Well, they
would
steal, given half a chance,” Rood insisted stubbornly. “It's in their nature.”

“It's in their nature to be boys, no more than that,” Josie chided him. “Just as it is in yours to bully those who cannot fight back.”

Rood's eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. With an effort, he summoned up a ghastly imitation of a polite smile. “Ye misjudge me, Miss Josephine,” he said. “I'm as kindly as the next man in my own way.”

“The next man must be a right heathen then,” said Josie tartly. “Go back to your business, Rood, and I'll see that these boys leave your precious sheep in peace.” She gestured at the fat Cheviot sheep, which seemed to be making a point of keeping their distance, the dogs and shepherds helping.