'You'd better get dried,' Mary said.

  I stripped and towelled myself dry, wondering if Kate would try her towel nonsense with me and knowing I would retaliate far more forcibly than Christine ever had. I felt incipient anger bubbling inside me and knew it came from the fabric of the house.

  'Let's eat outside,' I said, 'it's a beautiful morning.' In the few moments since I had come inside, the rain had stopped. Dawn brought the sun, the call of the golden plover and the bubbling trill of the whaup.

  ''Put some clothes on first,' Lorna advised. 'These two men may be around, and we don't want them getting any interesting notions.'

  'Men!' Charlie spat out the words as if it were a curse. 'If only we could invent a way of getting babies without their help this world would be a far better place.'

  'Much less fun, though,' Kate said, and most of us laughed. Charlie did not.

  The evil in Tigh-na-Beiste had discovered Charlie's enthusiastic support for suffrage and warped it into a dislike of men. As women we would all welcome equal rights; as rational, warm-blooded human beings, we did not pretend to despise or demonise half the human race.

  'Come on, ladies,' I dressed hurriedly and led them outside. The contrast to only an hour ago was astonishing. The rain had vanished, the air was crisp and invigorating, and the hill slopes invited us up.

  'It's exactly like Mahoney's journal,' Lorna breathed deeply. 'It's absolutely gorgeous today.'

  'Could not be better,' I agreed. Seabirds were wheeling, screaming in the air and a pair of oystercatchers arrowed past, piping to each other to praise the glory of the morning.

  We ate at the rock where I had spent the night, enthusiastically gobbling bacon sandwiches and gulping down hot sweet tea as we surveyed the route ahead.

  'Ready girls?' Kate was herself again, enthusiastic, vibrant and cheerful. She stamped her boots on the ground. 'On we go! To the Shelter Stone!'

  'To the Shelter Stone!' We repeated her words, waving our sticks in the air as we made final adjustments to our rucksacks and packs and followed her. All the tension of the previous day had vanished, we were one unit again, we were the Edinburgh Ladies Mountaineer Club, and we were going to conquer An Cailleach, come what may. It is strange what a little sleep and a gleam of sunshine can do to lift the spirits.

  As usual in the Scottish Highlands, the view was immense. Out to sea was a panorama of islets and islands, with the blue smear of the Outer Hebrides sweetening the far horizon. To the east, the mountains of Sutherland and Ross offered range upon range of shapely hills interspersed with delightful green glens and the mottled brown of heather moors. It was scenery to gladden the heart, a vista of which Sir Walter Scott would have been proud and a slap in the face to those war-mongering politicians whose ambition sought domination through war.

  Immediately outside the clachan the ground was level and had once been tended. Nettles and small bushes marked the memory of fields, and I could nearly hear the clink of agricultural tools and the low voices of long-gone people. Beyond that, between us and the first true rise of the hills, the ground sunk in a depression marked by patches of peat hag and pools of dark water.

  'This is not marked on the map.' Kate stopped at the end of this bogland as we crowded behind her. She tested the depth with her stick. 'It's deep, with a soft bottom. We won't be wading through that.'

  'There must be a way through,' Charlie said. 'The people who lived here must have got through.'

  'Not necessarily,' Lorna also poked in her stick. 'Maybe it formed after the landowner cleared Penrioch. What do you say, Mary, you're the local expert.'

  'The bog was always here,' Mary said. 'It's fed by the burns running off the hillside. 'I remember my granny telling me about it. She said the folk had a causeway through the burn so they could drive the cattle to the summer shieling up the hill.'

  'That'll be long gone now.' I said.

  'Maybe not.' Christine surprised me by giving an opinion without waiting for Kate. 'Some of the old castles were built in lochs, and they had causeways going to them. The causeways were slightly under the surface of the water, so only the defenders knew where they were. The causeway may still be there, but the water level will have risen with time.'

  'Oh listen to the professor,' Kate jeered. When did you get so clever?'

  I smiled encouragement to Christine. 'We'll look for the causeway then.'

  'Yes, well done, Christine.' Charlie rubbed her arm.

  Spreading out, we walked along the fringes of the bog, thrusting our sticks into the mud. After a few minutes, Lorna called out. 'It's shallower over here.'

  The ground was firmer underneath an inch and a half of peaty water. Lorna stepped gingerly into the bog and tapped with her stick. 'It seems to continue on,' she took another few baby-steps. 'Yes, we've found it.'

  'Christine should lead us,' Charlie gave Christine a wide smile. 'She should have the honour.'

  I was not surprised when Kate decried that suggestion and pushed forward. 'It could be dangerous,' she said. 'I'll go first.'

  'Yes, Kate,' Christine stepped aside so Kate could take the lead. We followed one by one onto the causeway.

  'My granny told me that the foundations were floated on bundles of heather sunk in the bog,' Mary said. 'And there was a wee hut halfway across in case of bad weather.'

  'I can't see a hut,' Kate said.

  'It's probably got blown away, or sunk into the peat,' Mary said.

  'As long as we don't get sunk in the peat,' Charlie kept rigorously to the centre of the causeway. 'What a horrible way to die.'

  Despite the early hour, midges rose in clouds as we slowly negotiated the bog. Kate poked into the peaty morass before taking any step, and we followed her lead, enjoying the scenery even as we swatted at the midges.

  'This is a desolate place,' Charlie looked around. 'I love the austerity of the mountains, I love the bustle of Edinburgh, and I love the fertility of agricultural land. This useless moorland is just a waste. It's horrid. What do you think, Christine?'

  'It ends soon,' Christine said. 'The ground rises over there,' she pointed with her stick. 'Actually, I rather like the loneliness of the bogland.'

  'Trust you to be contrary,' Kate called from in front. 'Wait now, girls!' She held up her stick. 'The path ends here.'

  'It'll be there somewhere,' Mary said. 'Poke around.'

  We stood on the causeway with the water lapping at our boots and the midges clustering to feed on our blood.

  'There's nothing here,' Kate said. 'We'll have to swim.'

  Nobody laughed at Kate's weak joke.

  'Let me try.' Squeezing past us, Mary joined Kate. She widened the search, prodding her stick into the mud in a circle. 'Here!' She jabbed the stick down harder. 'There's something there,' she indicated a spot well to the right of Kate and a full five feet in front. 'Maybe this part of the causeway collapsed, or the Penrioch folk put in a bend.'

  'What a stupid thing to do,' Kate said.

  'The old castles often had gaps and bends as well,' Christine said.

  'Did they,' Kate's tone indicated that she had no interest in Christine's opinion or in old time castles.

  'It's a bit of a step across,' Mary said. 'We'll have to jump or make a bridge.'

  'If the causeway's set on heather bundles,' Lorna said, 'it might not hold if we jumped on it. Six full-grown women thumping down! It will have to be the bridge.'

  'I don't know about you,' Charlie said, 'but I don't carry a bridge in my rucksack.'

  'Plenty bits of furniture left in the house,' Lorna the practical said. 'Come on, Brenda, you and I will find something.'

  Frustrated at the delay, we returned to Tigh-na-Beiste. The best we could find was the table which was luckily of deal and not too heavy to carry. It took us nearly an hour there and back, and my temper was beginning to fray when we arrived back at the bog to see Kate munching on a sandwich and Charlie sketching the view in her notebook.

  'Thank you for your help,' I said. Only Christine had the grace to look guilty.

  'Too many cooks would have spoiled the broth,' Lorna eased any tension. 'We're lucky we had not gone far.'

  The table was not quite long enough to bridge the gap, so we positioned it in the middle and had to take long strides on either side before we could continue. Our makeshift bridge swung alarmingly under our boots but held as we crossed one by one and continued on the causeway.

  'Those rowans will mark the other end,' Mary pointed to a small clump of rowan trees. 'My people used them for all sorts of reasons.'

  'Now we're on our way,' Kate spoke with some satisfaction as we passed the trees and thumped onto what passed for dry land in the peninsula.

  'I'm glad to get out of the bog,' Charlie waved her hand in a weak attempt to chase away the midges. 'I hate bogs and moorland. The idea of drowning in mud! I can't think of anything worse.'

  Lorna nodded. 'We saw plenty of that at Passchendaele,' she said. 'The soldiers feared that as much as they feared gas.' She wrestled with silent memories. 'Horrible. Like these midges.'

  'We'll lose the midges when the wind rises,' Mary nodded to the slope ahead. 'Looking at the way the bushes are growing, the wind here is pretty steady from the west.'

  We walked slowly and steadily, for to rush and stop is far more tiring, and we were all experienced in the hills. The first part of the climb was only a long slog through the rough grazing of the foothills, where grass gave way to patches of peat and then the granite skeleton of the mountain thrust through the purple-brown heather. I paused for a moment to view a stag and his harem of hinds feeding on a sheltered ledge above us. The stag was restless, pacing back and forth.

  'Rutting season,' Mary said. 'Best give the stag a wide berth.'

  Charlie snorted. I half expected her to bracket male stags into her dislike of men, but she refrained. As the hill grew steeper, we plodded on, passing the circular foundations of the summer shielings and the marks of old peat cuttings.

  'Now we're beyond human reach,' Mary looked around, where quietness brooded over the rough ground and rocks protruded from patches of struggling heather. 'This land is the true wilderness.'

  'We are on the outstretched hand of An Cailleach.' Although I intended to speak only to myself, Christine threw me a small smile. We walked on with the wind cutting at our faces and the views immense.

  I thought of the crowded streets of Edinburgh with trams and omnibuses and people crammed into dark streets of tenements, living between tedious jobs and damp-roomed houses. Only a century before or less they had lived in this vast space; the lives of thousands altered on the whim of a landowner. I thought of the scene I had witnessed, the brutality of forced eviction. Was life intended to be so unfair? There must be something better for the majority.

  'She's not the little innocent you think she is,' Kate stepped beside me.

  I had to refocus my mind from the visions of the previous night. 'Who?' I asked.

  'Young Christine,' Kate said. 'I said: she's not the little innocent she appears to be.'

  'She's a full grown woman,' I said. 'She's not a little girl anymore.' I was careful not to criticise.

  Kate was silent for a few moments as we trudged upwards, gasping to gain our second wind. 'Don't let her fool you,' she said.

  'Why you do treat her as you do?' I could not restrain myself any longer.

  Kate held my eye for longer than I liked. 'To keep her in her place,' she said. 'Believe me, Brenda; you don't want that woman to be in charge.'

  'I don't think she has ever been in charge,' I said. 'Not the way you bully her.'

  'You only see part of it,' Kate was almost pleading with me. 'I'm not the monster you seem to think I am.'

  An eagle circled above, its wings outspread as it rose higher on some current of air. I heard its harsh call and thought how puny and slow we must appear.

  'Kate,' Christine hurried up, 'are we going all the way to the top today?'

  I slowed down a little to allow Christine and Kate to be alone. What had Kate meant with her: 'don't let her fool you'? I watched as Christine edged closer to Kate, eager to be recognised, desperate for attention.

  The slope steepened so we had to lean forward. My rucksack was heavy on my back, the straps cut into my shoulders, and the nails in my boots scraped on the rocky ground beneath. I looked up, where the hill stretched before us, undulating into a series of heather-and-rock ridges that seemingly extended forever.

  From this angle, An Cailleach did not appear formidable in the slightest, a long, tiresome slog and nothing much else. I could not understand why nobody had climbed it.

  'I see Kate and Christine have made up,' Mary panted to me.

  'It appears so,' I said, and abruptly changed the subject. 'I saw your people last night.'

  'Which people?' Mary looked at me sideways with the sun catching the blue crystal that hung from her neck and the rowan cross pinned to her breast.

  'The people of Penrioch,' I said.

  Mary's eyes narrowed for a moment as if she suspected mockery. 'Oh them!' She gave a high-pitched laugh. 'I was only joking,' she denied her previous experiences. 'Besides you would see nothing in the dark.'

  I should have known better than to expose myself to ridicule. I closed my mind. 'I must have been dreaming, then,' I walked on, every step one pace deeper into the peninsula, every yard further from civilisation and nearer to An Cailleach.

  'That must be it,' Mary matched me step for step. 'There is a lot of dreaming in the Highlands. A lot of scheming, too.'

  Kate was well in front, tapping her stick on the ground as she ploughed ahead with Christine struggling to keep up with her.

  'That was awkward last night with these two,' I nodded to Kate.

  Mary shrugged. 'It was only a squabble,' she said. 'It's all blown over now. They've known each other for years.'

  'Since school at least,' I said. It seemed that Mary was not keen to pursue the objects that interested me. I closed my mouth and struggled on.

  There was no path up the steadily increasing slope, so we each chose whatever route seemed best as we panted and slogged upward to the first ridge. We stopped there to catch our breath and look around at the expansive view.

  I had initially believed that An Cailleach stood alone, a single peak on this peninsula. However, the shoulders of An Cailleach hid another, lesser height that hugged the hill to the east. I saw the pair now, like a mother hill and its daughter, an ill-matched pair of unyielding granite, partially seen through a haze of cloud.

  'That is Bein a Ghlo,' Mary said, 'Hill of the Mist, and you can see why.'

  Grey-white and slowly shifting, mist shrouded the top third of Bein a Ghlo and hid the gap between the two hills. I love watching mist drift across a mountain, now concealing, now revealing and always evocative. I said nothing for a good three minutes, wondering who had stood here before us and what An Cailleach thought of us watching her across a sea of mist.

  'He was here,' Lorna said.

  'Who?' Kate asked, too sharply.

  'Your brother.' Lorna spoke quietly. 'You were thinking of him.'

  Kate frowned and looked away. 'We have to ascend Bein a Ghlo first and then cross the saddle between the two peaks to conquer An Cailleach. All the other approaches are up precipitous cliffs. We have at least one sheer cliff on this route as it is.'

  'Let's get going then,' Charlie had been examining the route. 'I can't see any sign of these two men we saw yesterday. They've probably got the summit of An Cailleach, celebrated and returned to the inn to boast how they beat the women once again.'

  'They aren't back at the Inn,' I spoke without thought. 'They wouldn't be able to cross the ford last night. With all that rain it would be too deep. It might be passable later today.'

  I felt Kate's eyes on me. 'How would you know that? You haven't been here before.'

  'It's pretty obvious,' I told her. 'It was thigh deep when we crossed, and the rain was continuous after that. The burn will be swollen, and so the ford will be deeper.'

  Kate frowned and moved on. Christine scampered after her, and we followed to begin the first serious piece of climbing that we had undertaken on this expedition. Bein a Ghlo was not a significant height, being about two thousand three hundred feet in height, yet it posed particular challenges. The direct way up was inaccessible, being sheer cliffs of a thousand feet, but there was an easier ascent up a steep gulley topped by a cliff of three hundred feet with a perilous overhang.

  'Are we going up there?' Christine was the least experienced climber among us.

  'Oh, don't be such a baby!' Kate snapped. 'Just follow the rest of us.'

  'It's all right, Christine,' Lorna said. 'We'll all be roped together so if anybody slips, the others will hold her. We won't let you fall.'

  'I don't wish to be roped,' Charlie said.

  'I know its constricting,' Lorna allowed, 'but it's also safer. It's the only proper thing to do.'

  I traced the route we had to take, taking in every obstacle before we began the ascent. I had seen worse, but it could be tricky climbing. Christine was also staring at the cliff, with her breathing fast and shallow.

  'It's not as bad as it seems,' I whispered. 'There are always more hand-holds than one can see from a distance.'

  'I hope so,' Christine gave a watery smile. 'I don't want to let anybody down.'

  'You won't let anybody down,' I said. 'Trust yourself.'

  Christine rewarded me with a shy smile.

  We tied the ropes around our waists, checking each knot for strength, reassuring Christine that we had all done such things before, giving little laughs. The Mahoney expedition may have come this way before, we did not know. We may have been the first to attempt the climb, which excited Charlie more than anything. It was not the ascent that played on my nerves, but the words from Mahoney's journal and the strange happenings that plagued us on this expedition.

  There was that woman that nobody else had seen in the inn and at the ford. There was the washerwoman at the ford and the sickening atmosphere at Tigh-na-Beiste, and there was the scene between Kate and Christine, plus my vision of the Clearance ghosts at Penrioch. Any of these things would be unnerving on their own but taken together they scared me. Lastly, and most disturbing, was the woman who had appeared in Tigh-na-Beiste last night. Was she the same person who I had seen at the inn and at the ford?

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25