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Authors: Karen Ranney
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other emotions that would only hamper his driving ambition to be a leader for the rag-tag, haunted looking group that was his clan.
He did feel regret, however, that he had not taken the time in the past to realize how precious life truly was. As a physician, he had been prepared for death, but Alisdair realized he had never lived so fully as during the last two years. He had never appreciated the heather blooming on the moors as he did now, stooped to the plow. Nor had he smelled the sea with quite the sense of wonder, when each wave washed up the briny scent and carried with it the hope of a fresh catch in the morning. He had never before appreciated a clean, soft linen shirt with the same, singular joy as now.
Simple things measured the clicking of each day on some celestial clock, like rising in the morning and striding barefoot on a cool, wet patch of dew, the plucking of a rosy turnip from the ground, a filling meal of potato pancakes, the tangy sweetness of heather ale.
He appreciated too, no matter how paradoxical it seemed, his struggles. The hardships proved he still drew breath, that he still lived. Therefore, he was unperturbed by small events which would have left him irritated in the past. He repaired fallen roofs without cursing God for bringing the rain, played the part of plow horse without complaint. When his belly growled with hunger, he anticipated their meager rations and was grateful. He no longer questioned the unjustness of life, simply experienced it, with all its glories and disappointments, accepting the bad along with the good.
Hope was an emotion of choice, one of the few liberties still left him. Hope had made him agree to the terms of his conditional pardon. Hope had made him discount the feeling that he’d betrayed his country, his heritage, his ancestry, as he signed his name to the document which lashed him to English terms of justice. If he were lucky enough, did not die of starvation, or incur the wrath of the English, perhaps he would one day become a bitter old man feasting on the alum taste of memories grown vivid with age. But for now, he clung to the feeble ray of hope, shielding it like a candle in a gale, cupping it protectively in his hands and his heart, choosing not to remember as much to dream.
Only now had his memories achieved a distance in which he could view them without anguish. His poor, dear Anne whom he had been unable, with all of his skill, to save. His father, the debonair laird, laughing at the thought of death and championing lost causes with riotous disregard for reality. And Ian, his older brother, who stood just an arm's length away as nine thousand well trained, well equipped, and well fed troops of Cumberland's army swarmed across the glen. The fierceness of the Highlanders had counted as nothing that day.
Perhaps that was why he worked so hard to feed his people, to make a way for the crofters to subsist, to prepare them for an uncertain future, to hope in a land where hope had been burned and starved out of its people.
He had not believed.
He had never believed.
He had always despised lost causes.
His voice had been joined with the pitifully small minority who urged caution, who pleaded with Lochiel and the other influential clan chiefs to wait, to negotiate, to investigate the promises of the Bonnie Prince.
Even Ian had not cared that the man who would be king was a twenty-three year old weakling with a penchant for whining.
“He sees nothing wrong with the sacrifice of five thousand ill equipped troops who left home and hearth behind to follow a doomed dream, Ian, yet your prince has not once provided the aid he promised.” Even today, he could recall that conversation. Ian had only smiled at him, patient in the way a man is who does not listen to dissension.
“It will come, Alisdair. You must have faith in the cause.” How like Ian to have believed so readily, to have embraced so avidly something so dangerous, so potentially
He did feel regret, however, that he had not taken the time in the past to realize how precious life truly was. As a physician, he had been prepared for death, but Alisdair realized he had never lived so fully as during the last two years. He had never appreciated the heather blooming on the moors as he did now, stooped to the plow. Nor had he smelled the sea with quite the sense of wonder, when each wave washed up the briny scent and carried with it the hope of a fresh catch in the morning. He had never before appreciated a clean, soft linen shirt with the same, singular joy as now.
Simple things measured the clicking of each day on some celestial clock, like rising in the morning and striding barefoot on a cool, wet patch of dew, the plucking of a rosy turnip from the ground, a filling meal of potato pancakes, the tangy sweetness of heather ale.
He appreciated too, no matter how paradoxical it seemed, his struggles. The hardships proved he still drew breath, that he still lived. Therefore, he was unperturbed by small events which would have left him irritated in the past. He repaired fallen roofs without cursing God for bringing the rain, played the part of plow horse without complaint. When his belly growled with hunger, he anticipated their meager rations and was grateful. He no longer questioned the unjustness of life, simply experienced it, with all its glories and disappointments, accepting the bad along with the good.
Hope was an emotion of choice, one of the few liberties still left him. Hope had made him agree to the terms of his conditional pardon. Hope had made him discount the feeling that he’d betrayed his country, his heritage, his ancestry, as he signed his name to the document which lashed him to English terms of justice. If he were lucky enough, did not die of starvation, or incur the wrath of the English, perhaps he would one day become a bitter old man feasting on the alum taste of memories grown vivid with age. But for now, he clung to the feeble ray of hope, shielding it like a candle in a gale, cupping it protectively in his hands and his heart, choosing not to remember as much to dream.
Only now had his memories achieved a distance in which he could view them without anguish. His poor, dear Anne whom he had been unable, with all of his skill, to save. His father, the debonair laird, laughing at the thought of death and championing lost causes with riotous disregard for reality. And Ian, his older brother, who stood just an arm's length away as nine thousand well trained, well equipped, and well fed troops of Cumberland's army swarmed across the glen. The fierceness of the Highlanders had counted as nothing that day.
Perhaps that was why he worked so hard to feed his people, to make a way for the crofters to subsist, to prepare them for an uncertain future, to hope in a land where hope had been burned and starved out of its people.
He had not believed.
He had never believed.
He had always despised lost causes.
His voice had been joined with the pitifully small minority who urged caution, who pleaded with Lochiel and the other influential clan chiefs to wait, to negotiate, to investigate the promises of the Bonnie Prince.
Even Ian had not cared that the man who would be king was a twenty-three year old weakling with a penchant for whining.
“He sees nothing wrong with the sacrifice of five thousand ill equipped troops who left home and hearth behind to follow a doomed dream, Ian, yet your prince has not once provided the aid he promised.” Even today, he could recall that conversation. Ian had only smiled at him, patient in the way a man is who does not listen to dissension.
“It will come, Alisdair. You must have faith in the cause.” How like Ian to have believed so readily, to have embraced so avidly something so dangerous, so potentially
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