“You got yourself dirty for a crofter?” he asked in disbelief. “It was just a sheep, for heaven’s sake!”
Adam rounded on him angrily. “Not just any sheep,” he snapped. “That was Dinny’s best breeding ram and his livelihood depended on it. Perhaps to you it means very little, but to him it may mean the difference between feeding his family and starvation. It was my duty to help him as a man of honor and a good Christian.” He glared at Nicholas; he had come to despise the man.
Nicholas noticed with surprise that all the villagers who passed them greeted Adam with a cheery word in Gaelic, and he returned it.
He is turning into a Scot,Nicholas thought disgustedly.
When they got to the castle Adam ushered them into the parlor where he poured them ale. He would not waste valuable wine or whisky on this snobbish oaf.
“The message, please?” Adam asked, holding out his hand. Nicholas gave it to him, but before he opened it Adam turned to the priest. “Can you leave us, please, Father?” he asked politely.
Father Gordon turned red. “In God’s name, why?” he exploded.
“Because I would like you to,” Adam replied calmly. “I have reasons of my own.” The truth was that he did not want Father Gordon to show his ferocious anger in front of the messenger, and he did not want the priest to know the contents of the letter in case it was bad news. If it were he wanted some time to think about it first.
Father Gordon got up and gave Adam a furious glare, then stamped out of the room, muttering words that did not sound like prayers.
Adam broke the seal and looked at the first few lines. His face became a mask of horror.
“Oh, my God,” he breathed.
The letter was written in Cuthbert’s untidy scrawl, the sight of which had always made Adam laugh, because sometimes it was almost indecipherable, but he was not laughing now.
Dear Adam,
At first I thought it would be wonderful to hear from you, and it is, but you are asking me to do the impossible. If you think that English soldiers would ever march into what is still enemy territory, even though we have a truce, you are sadly mistaken. Even if I could lay hands on fifty such men, which I cannot, they would never fight in a Scottish cause. Their hatred of the Scots is visceral, and they would be only too happy to slaughter both sides in the conflict. Your villagers would despise them too. There is absolutely no love lost between us.
Adam thought bitterly that the villagers of Inverinch might drop their prejudices if their lives depended on it. He read the rest of the letter, chewing his lip with anxiety.
This is a very bad idea, Adam. Sell the castle and come back to London where you belong and where you can help your family. You will be a wealthy man and can do much good here. The villagers have looked after themselves since before you came and will no doubt look after themselves after you leave. Your place is not with them. I hope you see the sense of what I say and return to us soon.
Fondly,
Cuthbert
Adam dropped the letter in his lap.
He was devastated by this sudden dashing of all their hopes. He did not realize how much he had been relying on good news from Cuthbert.
Nicholas Rolfe must have seen the downcast expression on his face, for he asked, “Is it bad news?”
Adam looked up at him murderously. He knew what kind of news it was; messengers always did, and he had no doubt that the man was deriving the utmost satisfaction from this. “It is none of your business,” he said, in a voice that sounded like ground glass. “You may work for my cousin but you do not work for me!”
“Forgive me for being presumptuous,” Rolfe said contritely, lowering his eyes. There was a pause before he spoke again. “May I beg a favor, sir?”
“You may, but I do not know if it will be granted,” Adam replied gruffly.
“I need somewhere to stay tonight,” Rolfe said, and his tone was much humbler than it had been before. “May I stay here? I can pay.”
Adam was sorely tempted to throw him out into the freezing courtyard and tell him to go to the stables, but he was not a cruel man. Nicholas Rolfe, despite his superior manner, was only a messenger after all. Adam called a housemaid to take care of him, then he sat down and poured himself a large goblet of whisky. He walked over to the window to look at the view over the loch, which he had come to love, but for once he derived no comfort from it.
He had no men, and he had no gold, and in his utter naïveté he had expected his cousin to provide them. What had he been thinking?
You are a fool, Adam,he thought angrily.With no idea about the real world.
He filled another large goblet with whisky and drank it down in two draughts. He had had very little to eat that day and as he felt the last of the liquor burn a fiery path down his throat he staggered to his bedroom and sat down on his bed because he was having difficulty standing up.
Strangely, the whisky seemed to be clarifying his thinking, not dulling it, and he thought about his choices for a while. He had given up all pretense that McElwee was going to buy the estate, so he could let him take over or try to fight him with the resources he had, which were very few, or he could go to England to try to find men himself. He reasoned that he had two weeks at the most, or perhaps a little more, before Robert McElwee’s patience ran out, but it could be done. Surely there were some Scots sympathizers there? He had swallowed more than half the bottle of whisky, knowing that he would suffer for it in the morning, but he had made a decision. He was going to England.
