Read Online Voyager by Diana Gabaldon - Free Book Online

Cask.”
    “Legends?” said Claire, peering over his shoulder. “Is that what we want?”
    “Could be.” Roger was perusing the sheet, and spoke absently, his attention divided. “So far as the Scottish Highlands go, most of the history is oral, up to the mid-nineteenth century or so. That means there wasn’t a great distinction made between stories about real people, stories of historical figures, and the stories about mythical things like water horses and ghosts and the doings of the Auld Folk. Scholars who wrote the stories down often didn’t know for sure which they were dealing with, either—sometimes it was a combination of fact and myth, and sometimes you could tell that it was a real historical occurrence being described.
    “This one, for instance”—he passed the paper to Claire-“sounds like a real one. It’s describing the story behind the name of a particular rock formation in the Highlands.”
    Claire brushed the hair behind her ear and bent her head to read, squinting in the dim light of the ceiling fixture. Fiona, too accustomed to musty papers and boring bits of history to be interested, disappeared back into her kitchen to see to the dinner.
    “‘Leap O’ the Cask,’” Claire read. “‘This unusual formation, located some distance above a burn, is named after the story of a Jacobite laird and his servant. The laird, one of the few fortunates to escape the disaster of Culloden, made his way with difficulty to his home, but was compelled to lie hidden in a cave on his lands for nearly seven years, while the English hunted the Highlands for the fugitive supporters of Charles Stuart. The laird’s tenants loyally kept his presence a secret, and brought food and supplies to the laird in his hiding place. They were careful always to refer to the hidden man only as the “Dunbonnet,” in order to avoid any chance of giving him away to the English patrols who frequently crossed the district.
    “‘One day, a boy bringing a cask of ale up the trail to the laird’s cave met a group of English dragoons. Bravely refusing either to answer the soldiers’ questions, or to give up his burden, the boy was attacked by one of the dragoons, and dropped the cask, which bounded down the steep hill, and into the burn below.’”
    She looked up from the paper, raising her eyebrows at her daughter.
    “Why this one? We know—or we think we know,” she corrected, with a wry nod toward Roger, “that Jamie escaped from Culloden, but so did a lot of other people. What makes you think this laird might have been Jamie?”
    “Because of the Dunbonnet bit, of course,” Brianna answered, as though surprised that she should ask.
    “What?” Roger looked at her, puzzled. “What about the Dunbonnet?”
    In answer, Brianna picked up a hank of her thick red hair and waggled it under his nose.
    “Dunbonnet!” she said impatiently. “A dull brown bonnet, right? He wore a hat all the time, because he had hair that could be recognized! Didn’t you say the English called him ‘Red Jamie’? They knew he had red hair—he had to hide it!”
    Roger stared at her, speechless. The hair floated loose on her shoulders, alive with fiery light.
    “You could be right,” Claire said. Excitement made her eyes bright as she looked at her daughter. “It was like yours—Jamie’s hair was just like yours, Bree.” She reached up and softly stroked Brianna’s hair. The girl’s face softened as she looked down at her mother.
    “I know,” she said. “I was thinking about that while I was reading—trying to see him, you know?” She stopped and cleared her throat, as though something might be caught in it. “I could see him, out in the heather, hiding, and the sun shining off his hair. You said he’d been an outlaw; I just—I just thought he must have known pretty well…how to hide. If people were trying to kill him,” she finished softly.
    “Right.” Roger spoke briskly, to dispel the shadow in Brianna’s eyes.