Mairi's Battle
This story for my writing group is based on a historical event, commonly known as the Battle of the Braes. It was the last major action of the highland clearances and is often referred to as the last battle on British soil. I got the idea for the story after reading a news report of the battle in which the author marvelled at the vehemence of the women who participated. So I started thinking about this story as from the viewpoint of one of those women. In the process, it developed into a story about this one woman's belief in God. This is the revision after incorporating the inputs from my writing group.
MAIRI’S BATTLE
18 April 1882
“They’re here! They’re here! Comin’ roon the brae!” the cry pierced through gaps in the door slats and the cloth covering the open window. Mairi pushed open the door, standing in the damp April air and watched as neighbors left their crofts and headed toward the road.
Mairi knew it would happen, but it still came as a surprise. She had hoped it would all disappear, like the mist that creaps in from the sea and then, one day, dissipates to blue skies and pony-tail wisps. She hoped Laird MacDonald would take mercy on them, seeing how wretched and poor their lives were. It would be the right thing, the Christian thing, for him to do, like when Christ took pity on the masses and fed them on the shores of Galilee.
For weeks, now, the crofters refused to pay their rents to the Laird’s factor unless they were given permission to graze their animals on the slopes of Ben Lee. In response, the Laird sent his factor and the Inverness sheriff to serve eviction summonses. Mairi’s husband, Peter, and the men from the surrounding crofts, Norman Stewart and Alexander Finlayson—two trouble-makers—set upon the factor and sheriff forcing them to burn the eviction documents. There was whisky and fires late into the evening that night as the crofters celebrated their victory.
Mairi knew they would come back. Still she prayed. She prayed for the Lord to deliver her family from the poverty that was her heritage for so many generations, she almost believed there was nothing God could do to change it. She prayed for the Lord to share his Grace with the Laird MacDonald that he might understand and take pity on those beholden to him. She prayed that the crofters would remain righteous in God’s eyes by turning the other cheek.
When it appeared that each of her prayers had gone unanswered, she prayed a prayer of contrition and apology. It wasn’t her place to question God’s plan. Everything was His doing. This was God’s design. The Laird was wealthy because God willed it. Her family was poor and hungry because God determined that to be their status in the world. How could she question the architect of this world, the One who gave her her husband and children, the One who painted the glorious Skye sunsets and who caused the northern lights to billow in the night sky? Mairi thought she may have offended God with her selfishness, and she finished her prayer with tears.
So, when she stood in the doorway and saw her neighbors leaving their crofts for the main road, she folded her hands and bowed her head. “Dear Lord, help them to see your plan and know their place in it. You are truly a great God from whom all things emanate. We all are humble and give thanks for what we have. Amen.”
As she finished, Peter came round the side of the house, a wood pitchfork in one hand. He stood with Mairi for a moment, watching, and then quietly said, “MacLeod says constables are comin’. From Glasgow. About fifty. The Laird must have hired them to run us off.” He fell silent for a moment, then continued, “I have to go, Mairi.”
“No, dinna go, Peter. No.”
“Hush woman. I was there at the beginning. I’ll be there at the end.”
“There’s only trouble there, Peter. Someone could get hurt. You could get hurt. Then where would we be?”
Peter remained silent.
“If it’s the constables, you could be arrested.” Mairi’s voice began to crack. “Think of this, Peter. If you don’t go, if the Laird hears that we weren’t part of this, he might take pity on us and leave us alone.”
Peter looked at Mairi with dark eyes and shook his head.
“What if this is the Lord’s will, Peter?”
Peter kicked a stone, then looked to the distance where already a crowd gathered. “Then I suppose I should get on with earning my passage into Hell.” Peter began walking toward the road and the growing band of crofters.
Mairi lifted her apron and held it to her face, in part from shame over Peter’s blasphemous comment, and in part to catch the tears of fear now streaking her cheeks.
She imagined being put out of her home and being sent to a seaside village where Peter would need to learn fishing and the women waited on shore to clean the fish or waded out into the low tide muck in search of clams and mussels. She’d been told the smell of raw fish never leaves you, though you get used to it in time. Her two boys, Niall and Ailean, eleven and nine years old respectively, would be forced into someone’s employ to help put food on the table every day. Worse still, they could all be put on a boat and sent to Canada or the United States. She’d heard rumors that life in Canada could be difficult with short growing seasons and bitter cold winters. In the States, foreigners were looked upon with disdain and treated as outcasts.
Those fears were soon forgotten, though, when from her periphery she saw Niall and Ailean running to join Peter.
“Niall, Ailean, come home, now!”
They did not stop, nor look back.
“Even if they could hear ye Lass, they wouldna come home.” Old Anna approached from behind the house. She carried a large walking stick and a cloth bag at the end of a leather strap that she had over her shoulder and across her body. The bag was filled with something weighty.
“Anna, they shouldna be going. This isn’t something for bairns.”
“I’m thinking ye couldna stop them.” Anna leaned on the walking stick slightly out of breath. “They want to be men, and men they’ll be today.”
“No!” cried Mairi. “They’re too young!”
“Mairi, when yer protectin yer hame, no one’s too young.”
Mairi looked after Peter and her sons and began to sob.
“Here now, Lass.” Anna put her arm around Mairi’s shoulder. “They’ll be fine, I warrant it. I’ll tell ye what ye can do. Why don’t ye come with me, and we’ll go and keep a watchful eye on those lads o yers, eh?” Anna squeezed Mairi’s shoulder.
Mairi nodded.
“Ah, fine. That’s grand. Here now, carry me bag if ye will. I’m no as young as I used to be.”
Anna lifted the strap over her head and handed it to Mairi. Mairi nearly dropped it, it was so weighty.
“What’s in here?” Mairi asked while opening the mouth of the bag to look.
“Some wee stones I gathered in the field.”
Mairi quizzically looked at Anna.
“There of no use in the field now, are they.”
As they walked toward the road, Mairi was conflicted. She wanted to rush to where her boys were, but she felt obliged to stay with Anna who was laboring with the soft, uneven ground and the slight incline. To make matters worse, Anna did not talk in her exertion, leaving Mairi to fret unabated. At one point, Mairi asked Anna if the constables would carry guns. All she received in reply was Anna’s heavy breathing and a wave of impatience from her free hand.
The crofters, men, women and children, arrayed themselves along the short stone fence bordering the road. Four men and one woman crossed the fence and now stood on the road facing in the direction from which the constables would approach. As Mairi approached the forty or so crofters she began to hear murmurings and an occasional raised voice. Nearly all gathered had something in their hands—a rake, hoe, pitchfork, a walking stick, or stone. It frightened Mairi.
“I don’t see Niall or Ailean.” She stopped thirty feet from the crowd.
Anna took a step or two past her unaware they were stopping, then leaned heavily on her stick and looked back at Mairi. Between deep breaths she said, “Well, come on then. Ye’ll no find em back here.”
Mairi was becoming more frightened by the apparent attitude of the crofters and didn’t move. “I canna see them, Anna. Can you?”
“Lass, let’s go look together.”
“No, no. I want them to come to me. To come away from that . . . that . . . rabble. Can’t ye see?”
“Aye, I can see well enough. Yer afeared, aren’t ye, Lass?” Anna shook her head and stepped back toward Mairi. “Give me the stones then. I’ll find yer bairns and shush them back to ye.”
Mairi helped Anna lift the leather strap over Anna’s head and onto her shoulder.
“Mairi, the future of yer hame, yer life, is going to be right here, on this road. The Laird’s hired men are coming to take it all away from ye. Will ye no stand up for yerself?”
Mairi said nothing, looking past Anna as though she hadn’t heard a word. Anna turned, shaking her head, and trundled to the back of the crowd. Soon Niall and Ailean emerged from the crowd slowly and dejectedly walked toward Mairi. Ailean stumbled and fell from watching behind him and not on the ground he was walking.
“What are you two doing here? This is no place for young lads.”
“Others are here, Ma,” said Niall pointing back to the crowd.
“Well, they shouldn’t be. This is not a Christian gathering. This is not the sort of thing Christ would have taught us. No. I’ll no have my bairns straying from the teachings of Christ. Do you hear me?”
Before the boys could answer, one of the men in the crowd shouted, “There!” and soon all eyes, including Mairi’s, were focused down the road where a lone horseman rode out from behind a rise. The rider trotted a short distance, then stopped. He stayed there for several moments before wheeling his horse and leaving from the way he’d come, disappearing around the curve and behind the rise.
To a soul, the crofters remained silent while the rider was in sight. As soon as he disappeared, their murmurings started again, but at a noticeably higher decibel.
“See, now,” Mairi said, her voice betraying relief, “he spied us and thought better of it. It’s all over. We should be to hame, now.”
“What about Da?” asked Ailean.
“They’re all staying, Ma,” said Niall.
“It’s over,” Mairi raised her voice, “and that’s the last I’ll say of it. Ye’ll go hame now and say yer prayers thanking God for his grace and wisdom that kept us all safe.”
“Look!” shouted Ailean pointing back down the road. “Look, Niall.”
From behind the same rise, the rider reemerged. This time, men on foot followed. From this distance and in the muted light, Mairi could still see their dark uniforms with dark caps. The crofter’s murmuring stopped again.
It was now coming to pass, and the fear gripped her by the throat. Marching up the road in navy uniforms with brass buttons was her misery. They were the harbingers of homelessness. On their belts were truncheons of destitute lives. On their caps were badges of cold-heartedness. Mairi began to feel the desolation deep into her soul.
Still, her soul was buoyed by the thought that this was all part of God’s plan. Recognizing that her destiny was unfolding before her, even though she had no notion of what that destiny held, was a small comfort. These constables could be, instead of the messengers of misery, the instruments of God’s will come to ensure God’s will come to pass.
Nevertheless, she feared them and the destiny they brought. She feared finding a new home. She feared going hungry and watching her bairns starve. Most of all, she feared the possibility she could be put on a boat destined for a different and foreign land.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone turn and run away, toward the crofts of Balmeanach. With her eyes, Mairi followed his flight until he disappeared behind some buildings. When she looked back, Niall and Ailean were no longer in front of her. They were nowhere to be seen. Mairi panicked and moved closer to the road to try to find them. When she reached the stone wall, she saw them. They were on the road with their father, Peter, facing the oncoming constables.
“Niall! Ailean!”
The boys looked at her, then at their father. Peter patted Ailean on the head. They stayed with him.
“Peter! I dinna want them there!”
Peter looked at her and frowned.
“Fine young men ye raised there, Mairi,” said Anna tanking Mairi’s arm. “Their Da will keep them from harm.”
“He shouldna have to,” said Mairi. “They shouldna be there.”
“Och, let them be, Lass. Ye’ll remember wha they done here wi’ pride, ye will. They’re good, brave lads, sure.”
Anna moved back toward the bulk of the crofters. Mairi looked to the approaching constables who were now close enough she could make out the determination on their faces. Then, from her right periphery, she saw more people from Balmeanach climbing the hill toward the road. To her left she saw movement among the stones on the slope above the road. Now the constables would be outnumbered and it only served to build Mairi’s dread.
The crofters were silent as the constables approached. Mairi wondered what they were thinking. With more coming up from Balmeanach and those on the hill, she began to worry even more that this confrontation would become a conflict of high emotion rather than a meeting of reasoned coolness. She looked back to Peter, Niall, and Ailean, and became even more fearful. Looking for strength, she folded her hands, bowed her head, and silently prayed.
Dear Lord, I know you’re a just and merciful God of Grace. And I know this may all be according to your plan. But, Lord, I feel like we’re the Israelites and the constables are the Egyptians. Ye helped the Israelites. Ye parted the sea and when they were safe ye crushed their enemies with the very thing ye saved them with. Will ye save us like you did them? What have we done, how have we sinned so, that makes us less worthy of your salvation than the Israelites? Dear God, do something. Keep my family from harm. I beseech ye.
The constables stopped short of the gathered crofters. Their eyes, edgy, almost frightened, their heads constantly moving as though they expected something to happen and wanted to see from which quarter it started.
The crofters began drifting down the stone wall until they were abeam the constables. Peter, Niall, Ailean and the other men blocking the road moved closer as well. Mairi followed from behind the stone wall.
“Yer no welcome here!” shouted one of the men standing next to Peter. “There’s nothing for ye here. Go back to where ye come.”
From the front of the constables, the sheriff replied, “We’re no here for a welcome.”
“Then go hame!” shouted someone from the wall.
“Aye, off with ye, ye buggerin bastards!” shouted someone else followed by a chorus of “ayes” and grumbles from the crofters shaking their sticks and raising their fists.
The constables’ unease was now palatable. Many removed their truncheons from their belts and held them at the ready. Mairi could see that some began moving into a stance she could only imagine was in preparation for an attack.
The sheriff dismounted his horse and reached into his coat breast pocket pulling out a folded paper. He kept watch on the crowd as he unfolded the paper and prepared to read.
“The Laird Alexander MacDonald and the magistrate of Portree have issued a warrant for the arrest of Norman Stewart, Alexander Finlayson, Malcolm Finlayson, Peter MacDonald, Donald Nicholson, and James Nicholson . . .”
Mairi heard her husband’s name and panic swelled in her breast. She could feel her throat constrict and her breathing quicken. Where was God, she wondered. Where was his compassion and justice? Certainly he could not be looking down on the misery that was about to be inflicted with a dispassionate heart. Certainly, he would not loose the wolves on his flock.
From the crofters, someone yelled, “Ye canna fool us, ye’ve come to hump our sheep.” The crowd burst into laughter.
“Ye’re all the shite in the field.”
A woman followed, “Nay, they’re the worms under the shite.” More laughter.
“Ye’ll nay take a one, sae help me,” Peter replied to the sheriff. “Ye can drag yer bloody arses back tae Glasgow.”
“Oh God, no, Peter. No,” whispered Mairi. She saw Naill standing next to his father. He now held a stone in his right hand. Ailean had backed away.
“Ailean! Ailean! Come here!” and the lad began making his way to Mairi all the while keeping watch on the formation of constables. When he reached Mairi, she could see the fear in his eyes and when she stroked his hair, she could feel a tremble. She took his hand and held him close to her.
“Wheest, child.”
The crofters were tense, waiting, it seemed to Mairi, for an excuse to rush the constables. The constables were tense as well, fearing what appeared to be the inevitable pain of sticks and stones. The crofters began shouting at the invaders. There was Anna shaking her walking stick in their direction and shouting, “Go hame, ye buggerer of boys!”
Mairi saw the sheriff turn toward the constables behind him and then point to the men blocking the road, including Peter and Niall. The sheriff then stepped out of the way and a dozen or so constables, truncheons in hand, began walking toward the men the sheriff identified. Apparently, that was all the crofters required. Stones started flying toward the constables. A few crofters hopped up on the stone wall and began swinging their sticks and tools at the police. Mairi saw movement on the hillside and looked in time to see several large stones rolling toward the massed constables.
The din was tremendous. Mairi couldn’t make out what most were saying, but she could tell it was being said in anger. She looked down at Ailean who was now hugging her side. It’s not right, she thought, it’s not right. These uniformed men, these strangers who’ve never seen any of us before, have been sent to do the bidding of the one who does know us. They’re the hired tools of a coward. No better and not much different from oxen yoked to do their masters’ labors.
As she watched in frozen horror, the clash between crofters and constables became more involved and pitched. Crofters clambered over the stone wall only to face truncheons being swung wildly in an attempt to keep crofters at a distance and to deflect incoming sticks and tools. Mairi saw crofters being hit by truncheons and staggering away. Moments later they were ready to rejoin the fray. She saw constables backing away from the pressing crowd. It appeared the crofters were gaining the advantage. Then she saw Anna stumble away from the crowd. Mairi went to her.
“Are ye hurt?”
“Aye,” whispered Anna as though she was out of breath. “A wee bit. A bastard got
me . . . before I could get . . . one of them.”
Anna turned her head away from Mairi. Her neck was brilliant red and a small trickle of blood escaped from her ear. Mairi hissed, sucking in air.
“Striking a woman. Have they no decency? It’s no too bad, Anna.”
“That’s no why . . . I left,” continued Anna. “I also got hit . . . in the chest. Knocked the breath . . . from me.”
Mairi helped Anna sit on the ground. When Mairi knelt to clean the blood from Anna’s ear, Anna brushed her away and pointed to the road. Mairi saw a desperate struggle between the men on the road and the constables.
“Peter won’t . . . give up yer hame . . . without a good row,” said Anna.
Mairi looked up to the road and Peter who was struggling against the grasping hands of the constables. She stood. A truncheon lifted above the fray. It swung down. Niall fell to the ground.
“No!” Mairi shouted and began running toward the fighting men. “A dhiobhail!” She hadn’t spoken Gaelic in years and now the first thing out of her mouth was to curse the constable as a devil.
Niall crawled away from the brawl. Mairi rushed to him. He was crying and holding his left shoulder. Mairi helped him away from the road. When they stopped, she tried to cajole him to stop crying to no avail.
Two constables now had Peter on the ground and one was striking Peter with his fist. Mairi looked down, then moved Niall to the side and picked up a potato-sized stone. With all her might, she hurled it at the men holding Peter. When she’d thrown it, she yelled, “A mitic an deamhan!” [You son of the devil!]
Her stone fell short of the men, but one saw her throw it and nodded toward her and said something to another constable.
“Yer a poofter!” shouted Mairi. “Aye, you, ye clotheid.”
The constable took two steps toward Mairi and stopped.
“Cha toll?” she taunted. “Pog mo thon!” [No? Kiss my ass!]
Mairi picked up another stone and threw it at the stopped constable. He caught it before it could hit him. He shook his head, dropped the stone, and turned back toward the brawl. Mairi shrieked in exasperation.
The crofters who had been blocking the road, including her Peter, were now being drug back to the main body of constables who were still fighting off crofter sticks and stones. The arrested men were handcuffed, yet struggling against their captors. In short order, the constables and their captors were enveloped in the main body of constables. When they were all together the constables slowly began backing down the road they’d arrived on with the shouting and harassing crofters in pursuit.
Mairi lost sight of Peter. She left Niall and Ailean with Anna, who was still sitting and panting, and followed the crowd. She picked up a stone and was preparing to throw it when she realized that Peter was somewhere amongst the constables and her stone might hit him. So she dropped the stone and instead shouted, “ Yer mither’s a salope and yer the gowk from her wame!” She saw another woman pick up a stone to throw and said, “No, no. Our men are in there.”
When it became apparent to Mairi that Peter was going to be taken away and the gathered crofters weren’t going to affect it, she stopped following and watched the crofters and constables drift slowly down the road, still in contact with each other. Soon more and more crofters fell out of the crowd and the pace of the constables quickened.
Mairi still seethed with anger at the whole situation—the Laird and his lackey factor, the sheriff, and the hired constables. How dare they come into her space, her home, with ill intent? They were invaders. She hated them all. They were vile thieves.
Mairi turned away from the retreating army and returned to her boys and Anna. Both boys had stopped crying, though Ailean still gulped large breaths of air. Mairi brushed back his hair from his face, then with her thumbs, wiped the dirt streaks on his cheeks.
“Where are they takin Da?” Ailean asked.
“Awa, lad,” she whispered. “Dinna fash yerself. Yer Da will be back soon enough.”
Mairi turned to Niall who was still favoring the shoulder that had been struck.
“Ah, Niall. Are ye hurt bad, dear?”
Niall shook his head.
“Can ye lift yer arm?” she asked helping him raise his arm from his side. “Good. It’s no broken then.”
“I’m proud of ye, Mairi,” Anna said pulling herself to her knees. “Ye stood up for yer man and yer hame, ye did. Against them coofs.”
Mairi looked back down the road and muttered, “Ifrinn an diabhuill . . . a dhia, thoir cobhair.” [Devil’s hell . . . God help us]
“God dinna help them like us, lass,” said Anna. She lifted her arm toward Mairi who took it helping Anna to her feet. “It’s the Laird he helps. The Laird and them like him.”
“Anna, wha now?”
“Aye, wha now.” Suddenly Anna looked frantically toward the crofters that were now trudging back. “Have ye seen Angus?”
“Aye, I did. He was fine.”
Anna looked back at Mairi and smiled. Patting Mairi’s cheek, Anna said, “Aye, wha now. I guess we go hame, go hame and wait. Will ye be alright, then? Just ye and the lads, there?”
Mairi nodded.
“Come on then, lads,” said Anna. “Let’s tak yer mither hame so ye can wait for yer Da’s return.”
In the quiet walk home, Mairi relived the day ending in the anxiousness she now felt returning. Her husband was gone, taken by the agents of a greedy, powerful, uncaring man. The Laird had taken her man, her boys’ father. She and the boys could manage the croft for a short while, but soon those same agents led by the Laird’s cousin, the Factor, would come to put her out. She and her boys, and what they could carry, would be sent to a fishing village or put on a boat to Canada. How would Peter find them when released from custody? How would they ever find each other in a foreign land? She had no answers. No convenient comforts to ease her fears. Answers abandoned her when she needed them most.
He abandoned her . . . or she abandoned Him. I didn’t matter. He wasn’t there. He didn’t protect her or her family from the calamity they now faced. He had to know what was happening to them and He turned a blind eye.
When they arrived at the croft, Mairi said farewell to Anna, assuring her again she would be fine, and sent the boys inside. She stayed outside the door in the cool, damp air and watched her neighbors and villagers stream back from the scene of the battle. Some remained defiant, boisterous to those for whom it did not matter. Most, though, were silent. Mairi thought they were contemplating the ramifications of the day and their futures that were already rather bleak. Most were barely able to eke enough from the rock-strewn, spongy soil to pay their rent, let alone have some money left over for fish or coal. The Laird would certainly be harsh in his retribution for their insolence, and they walked as though they knew it.
It was when Duncan MacPhee passed that her soul blackened into obscurity. Duncan was the most God-fearing man she knew. Many said he should be the reverend rather than the sot they had. As he walked past Mairi’s croft, she could see blood matting the hair on his head and in his beard. Here was a man who, of all men, had no sin. He lived day-to-day by God’s word. He prayed night and day. If God would love and protect anyone, it would be Duncan MacPhee.
Yet, here he was trudging back from the confrontation with the constables and on his head a sign that God had not been with him, had not protected him. Could it be Duncan was also being punished? Could God not forgive him this once for all the years Duncan had been his most devoted servant? As the Lord’s devoted servant, Duncan suffered like every other crofter. Diseased crops, starving beasts, and a demanding landlord plagued Duncan no less than it did, say, David Conroy who drank too much, whose every sentence contained curse words and who routinely disappeared leaving his family to fend for themselves. His life and Duncan’s life were equally hard. How could that be?
Did God not care? Could he not see this part of the world to know the pain and suffering they were enduring? Had he washed his hands of men only to intervene in the world to punish? Is there not a better way, a more compassionate way, to deal with our misery? Can He not think of anything better?
Mairi took a deep breath and turned to go inside. She stood next to the fire for a moment, then said, “Lads, come here. I dinna know when yer Da will come home. It may be soon, or maybe no. I’m sure the factor will soon call and charge us to leave. So, we need to be ready. I’ll be relyin on ye two to help. Do ye understand me?”
Niall and Ailean nodded.
Mairi looked into the fire and continued, “Aye, we’re on our own now. There’s no one to help. We must do what we have to. Rely on no one or nothing.”
