God's Highlander Read Free Page A

the Isle of Lewis – his Eilean an Fhraoich , or ‘Island of Heather’ – but here the happy memories came to an end.
    In common with many other landlords, the proprietor of Lewis had tasted London life – and the simple pleasure of living among the Highlands and Islands of Scotland palled against all the capital had to offer.
    Unfortunately, London society life required money. The landlord’s first step was to raise the rents of the tenants. They were doubled … trebled … and doubled again. Then the discovery was made that larger profits could be made by clearing tenants from their holdings and grazing sheep on the hills and in the glens of the islands. Soon flocks of the bleating woolly creatures were being driven north in their thousands and tens of thousands. Tiny cloven hoofs ground the proud traditions of the clansmen into the soft turf on which they had so often spilled their blood when fighting their laird’s battles.
    Turned out of their homes and dispossessed of rented lands, the Highlanders were resettled on rocky shores useless for sheep-grazing. When they complained the Highlanders were told they must learn to earn a living from the sea. Disillusioned and bewildered by all that was happening about them, many set sail for new lands. Others – and they were becoming fewer with every passing year – clung tenaciously to the only way of life they had ever known. Defying landlords, sheep and all that nature itself sent against them, they fought to retain their identity.
    On the Isle of Lewis, Wyatt’s father exhausted himself fighting for justice for his people, but his efforts were in vain. He left with the last of his parishioners and trod the long road from the Isles. A weary and defeated man, he dropped dead outside the village of Eskaig. His death
was attributed to ‘natural causes’, but those who were closest to him knew he died of a broken heart.
    While all this was happening, Wyatt had been gaining renown as a fearless soldier in the Kaffir Wars in Natal, in far-off South Africa. Landing in Africa as a sergeant, Wyatt saved the life of his commanding officer in action and succeeded in beating off an attack by warring Zulus. For this feat he was commissioned as a lieutenant on the field of battle. Twelve months later, by now a captain, but broken in health, he was in a ship heading for Scotland. What had promised to be a brilliant career was brought to an end by a recurring fever which struck down great numbers of the British soldiers in Natal.
    The officer whose life had been saved by Wyatt died of the same fever. He was the heir of Lord Kilmalie, landlord of Eskaig. The Scots peer never forgot the man who had saved his son’s life, albeit for only a brief period. It was Lord Kilmalie who helped Wyatt through university, and when the living of Eskaig became vacant there was only one minister the titled landlord would have there.
    Wyatt was still engrossed in memories of the past when he set off to keep his dinner engagement with the factor and his family later that evening. He was no more than half a mile from Eskaig when the train of his thoughts was broken by the sound of shouting from the undergrowth, close to the loch’s edge. Moments later a barefoot boy broke from the tangle of gorse and heather. It was Ewan Munro.
    The boy was carrying a fair-sized salmon in his hands and when he saw Wyatt an expression of alarm came to his face. Then he turned and fled, vanishing into the foliage on the other side of the road as quickly as he had appeared.
    â€˜Hey! Wait a minute….’ Wyatt ran to where the boy had disappeared and called again. He could hear the crashing of undergrowth ahead of him along a narrow overgrown glen that appeared to follow the course of a stream, deep into the mountains, away from the loch.
    Acting on an impulse, Wyatt followed the path of the boy for perhaps ten minutes. When he stopped he could no longer hear