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Authors: Reay Tannahill
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They could just as well have gone by the new road, but Henry thought that would be insipid. Surrounded by a grinning audience of military veterans from the Fort, and canal workmen resting their barrowloads of soil and rock, he haggled like a peddler in a native bazaar with the boatman Rory Mor and his three strapping sons.
‘Two shillings,’ Henry said firmly.
‘Och, no. I wass chust going out after the fush.’
‘Fish?’ said Henry. ‘You’re a boatman. It’s your duty to carry passengers! Two-and-sixpence.’
‘No, no. There iss no duty about it at aal. And the weather iss chust right for the fushing.’
‘It’s outrageous.’ Henry tipped back his cardinal’s hat. ‘Three shillings.’
‘Och, no. Anyway, I would neffer be getting that great big coach on my boat.’
‘Of course you would. Three-and-six.’
‘No, no. Come away, boys. Let uss be getting off after our fush and leave the chentleman to make other arrangements.’
Henry knew when he was beaten. The coach and horses went by road, while Rory Mor and his sons received the exorbitant sum of four shillings for rowing half a dozen passengers half a dozen miles up the loch.
Vilia enjoyed this interlude very much, being entirely on Rory Mor’s side, but once they were on the road again she became progressively more silent. Luke didn’t even notice at first. He was too interested in the progress the road had made in the last year. It was strange, even to a child, to see the endless grey-gravelled scar winding from one horizon to the other, from nowhere to nowhere, a raw and glaring scribble in the wild majesty of the landscape. The human vision that had brought it into being was not yet justified, for the final stretch was still incomplete. The cattle that would cross from Skye to thunder along the beautifully engineered highway, fifteen feet wide, with careful run-offs and banked-up sides, had no access to it yet, while the few humans who lived along its route continued to make their barefoot way over the soft, resilient mosses and heathers of the hills. In use, perhaps, it would begin to look as if it belonged. Unused, it was a gratuitous smack in the face of Nature. Even on a blazing June day there was something unnerving about rounding a shoulder of mountain to see ahead a great sweep of rocks and waters, tumbling on and down, into and out of narrow passes – a vista of startling greens, lichened greys, sparkling silver, sandstone reds and peaty blacks, stretching far to the horizon and the blue glitter of the distant sea. And slashed through it all the thin gravel highway, empty, bare, blind, and somehow malevolent. On Luke’s previous journey, he had found nothing oppressive in this towering wilderness. Now, he was attacked by a stronger sense of isolation than ever in his life before.
They were all silent. It came as the strangest shock, rounding a bend, to see pitched in a sheltered dell by the roadside a few tents, with a handful of labourers supping their midday brose. They gazed at the travellers incuriously. The coachman’s impervious London face stared straight ahead, and the groom sat as motionless as if he had been stuffed. Luke and Henry, from their lumbering cocoon, bowed in a stately way and passed on with never a word spoken. It was as unreal as a dream.
Luke glanced at Vilia. She sat absorbed in a corner seat, her bare head resting on the leather squab cushion and her eyes turned unseeingly on the bright world outside. There were deer on the hills. A pair of lapwings, large and crested, circled the carriage, shrieking to distract it from the vicinity of their nest. A male wheatear, dazzlingly elegant with his grey back, peach-gold breast, and kohl-rimmed eyes, surveyed it doubtfully from a cairn by the roadside, and then flew off with an admonitory chack-chack that was audible even over the gritty rumble of the wheels.
Vilia ignored it all. Luke glared at her. He knew she was going to spoil everything. Pessimistically,
‘Two shillings,’ Henry said firmly.
‘Och, no. I wass chust going out after the fush.’
‘Fish?’ said Henry. ‘You’re a boatman. It’s your duty to carry passengers! Two-and-sixpence.’
‘No, no. There iss no duty about it at aal. And the weather iss chust right for the fushing.’
‘It’s outrageous.’ Henry tipped back his cardinal’s hat. ‘Three shillings.’
‘Och, no. Anyway, I would neffer be getting that great big coach on my boat.’
‘Of course you would. Three-and-six.’
‘No, no. Come away, boys. Let uss be getting off after our fush and leave the chentleman to make other arrangements.’
Henry knew when he was beaten. The coach and horses went by road, while Rory Mor and his sons received the exorbitant sum of four shillings for rowing half a dozen passengers half a dozen miles up the loch.
Vilia enjoyed this interlude very much, being entirely on Rory Mor’s side, but once they were on the road again she became progressively more silent. Luke didn’t even notice at first. He was too interested in the progress the road had made in the last year. It was strange, even to a child, to see the endless grey-gravelled scar winding from one horizon to the other, from nowhere to nowhere, a raw and glaring scribble in the wild majesty of the landscape. The human vision that had brought it into being was not yet justified, for the final stretch was still incomplete. The cattle that would cross from Skye to thunder along the beautifully engineered highway, fifteen feet wide, with careful run-offs and banked-up sides, had no access to it yet, while the few humans who lived along its route continued to make their barefoot way over the soft, resilient mosses and heathers of the hills. In use, perhaps, it would begin to look as if it belonged. Unused, it was a gratuitous smack in the face of Nature. Even on a blazing June day there was something unnerving about rounding a shoulder of mountain to see ahead a great sweep of rocks and waters, tumbling on and down, into and out of narrow passes – a vista of startling greens, lichened greys, sparkling silver, sandstone reds and peaty blacks, stretching far to the horizon and the blue glitter of the distant sea. And slashed through it all the thin gravel highway, empty, bare, blind, and somehow malevolent. On Luke’s previous journey, he had found nothing oppressive in this towering wilderness. Now, he was attacked by a stronger sense of isolation than ever in his life before.
They were all silent. It came as the strangest shock, rounding a bend, to see pitched in a sheltered dell by the roadside a few tents, with a handful of labourers supping their midday brose. They gazed at the travellers incuriously. The coachman’s impervious London face stared straight ahead, and the groom sat as motionless as if he had been stuffed. Luke and Henry, from their lumbering cocoon, bowed in a stately way and passed on with never a word spoken. It was as unreal as a dream.
Luke glanced at Vilia. She sat absorbed in a corner seat, her bare head resting on the leather squab cushion and her eyes turned unseeingly on the bright world outside. There were deer on the hills. A pair of lapwings, large and crested, circled the carriage, shrieking to distract it from the vicinity of their nest. A male wheatear, dazzlingly elegant with his grey back, peach-gold breast, and kohl-rimmed eyes, surveyed it doubtfully from a cairn by the roadside, and then flew off with an admonitory chack-chack that was audible even over the gritty rumble of the wheels.
Vilia ignored it all. Luke glared at her. He knew she was going to spoil everything. Pessimistically,
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