Ken Follett - A Place Called Freedom (1995)

“A ship,” Esther said wonderingly. Neither of them had ever seen one, although they had looked at pictures in books. “Where will you go?”

“London, I expect.” Most coal ships out of Edinburgh were destined for London. But some went to Amsterdam, Mack had been told. “Or Holland. Or Massachusetts, even.”

“They’re just names,” Esther said. “We’ve never met anyone who’s been to Massachusetts.”

“I suppose people eat bread and live in houses and go to sleep at night, the same as everywhere else.”

“I suppose so,” she said dubiously.

“Anyway, I don’t care,” he said. “I’ll go anywhere that’s not Scotland—anywhere a man can be free. Think of it: to live where you like, not where you’re told. To choose your work, free to leave your place and take another job that’s better paid, or safer, or cleaner. To be your own man, and nobody’s slave—won’t that be grand?”

There were hot tears on her cheeks. “When will you go?”

“I’ll stay another day or two, and hope the Jamissons relax their vigilance a bit. But Tuesday’s my twenty-second birthday. If I’m at the pit on Wednesday I’ll have worked my year-and-a-day, and I’ll be a slave again.”

“You’re a slave anyway, in reality, whatever that letter said.”

“But I like the thought that I’ve got the law on my side. I don’t know why it should be important, but it is. It makes the Jamissons the criminals, whether they acknowledge it or not. So I’ll be away Tuesday night.”

In a small voice she said: “What about me?”

“You’d better work for Jimmy Lee, he’s a good hewer and he’s desperate for another bearer. And Annie—”

Esther interrupted him. “I want to go with you.”

He was surprised. “You’ve never said anything about it!”

Her voice became louder. “Why do you think I’ve never married? Because if I get wed and have a child I’ll never get out of here.”

It was true she was the oldest single woman in Heugh. But Mack had assumed there was just no one good enough for her here. It had not occurred to him that all these years she had secretly wanted to escape. “I never knew!”

“I was afraid. I still am. But if you’re going, I’ll go with you.”

He saw the desperation in her eyes, and it hurt him to refuse her, but he had to. “Women can’t be sailors. We haven’t the money for your passage, and they wouldn’t let you work it. I’d have to leave you in Edinburgh.”

“I won’t stay here if you go!”

Mack loved his sister. They had always sided with one another in any conflict, from childhood scraps, through rows with their parents, to disputes with the pit management. Even when she had doubts about his wisdom she was as fierce as a lioness in his defense. He longed to take her with him, but it would be much harder for two to escape than one. “Stay a little while, Esther,” he said. “When I get where I’m going, I’ll write to you. As soon as I get work, I’ll save money and send for you.”

“Will you?”

“Aye, to be sure!”

“Spit and swear.”

“Spit and swear?” It was something they had done as children, to seal a promise.

“I want you to!”

He could see she meant it. He spat on his palm, reached across the plank table, and took her hard hand in his own. “I swear I’ll send for you.”

“Thank you,” she said.

6

A DEER HUNT HAD BEEN PLANNED FOR THE FOLLOWING morning, and Jay decided to go along. He felt like killing something.

He ate no breakfast but filled his pocket with whiskey butties, little balls of oatmeal steeped in whiskey, then stepped outside to look at the weather. It was just becoming light. The sky was gray but the cloud level was high, and there was no rain: they would be able to see to shoot.

He sat on the steps at the front of the castle and fitted a new wedge-shaped flint into the firing mechanism of his gun, fixing it firmly with a wad of soft leather. Perhaps slaughtering some stags would be an outlet for his rage, but he wished he could kill his brother Robert instead.

He was proud of his gun. A muzzle-loading flintlock rifle, it was made by Griffin of Bond Street and had a Spanish barrel with silver inlay. It was far superior to the crude “Brown Bess” issued to his men. He cocked the flintlock and aimed at a tree across the lawn. Sighting along the barrel, he imagined he saw a big stag with spreading antlers. He drew a bead on the chest just behind the shoulder, where the beast’s big heart pumped. Then he changed the image and saw Robert in his sights: dour, dogged Robert, greedy and tireless, with his dark hair and well-fed face. Jay pulled the trigger. The flint struck steel and gave a satisfactory shower of sparks, but there was no gunpowder in the pan and no ball in the barrel.

He loaded his gun with steady hands. Using the measuring device in the nozzle of his gunpowder flask he poured exactly two and a half drams of black powder into the barrel. He took a ball from his pocket, wrapped it in a scrap of linen cloth, and pushed it into the barrel. Then he undipped the ramrod from its housing under the barrel and used it to ram the ball into the gun as far as it would go. The ball was half an inch in diameter. It could kill a full-grown stag at a range of a hundred yards: it would smash Robert’s ribs, tear through his lung, and rip open the muscle of his heart, killing him in seconds.

He heard his mother say: “Hello, Jay.”

He stood up and kissed her good morning. He had not seen her since last night, when she had damned his father and stormed off. Now she looked weary and sad. “You slept badly, didn’t you,” he said sympathetically.

She nodded. “I’ve had better nights.”

“Poor Mother.”

“I shouldn’t have cursed your father like that.”

Hesitantly Jay said: “You must have loved him … once.”

She sighed. “I don’t know. He was handsome and rich and a baronet, and I wanted to be his wife.”

“But now you hate him.”

“Ever since he began to favor your brother over you.”

Jay felt angry. “You’d think Robert would see the unfairness of it!”

“I’m sure he does, in his heart. But I’m afraid Robert is a very greedy young man. He wants it all.”

“He always did.” Jay was recalling Robert as a child, never happier than when he had grabbed Jay’s share of the toy soldiers or the plum pudding. “Remember Robert’s pony, Rob Roy?”

“Yes, why?”

“He was thirteen, and I was eight, when he got that pony. I longed for a pony—and I could ride better than he, even then. But he never once let me ride it. If he didn’t want to ride it himself, he would make a groom exercise Rob Roy while I watched, rather than let me have a go.”

“But you rode the other horses.”

“By the time I was ten I had ridden everything else in the stable, including Father’s hunters. But not Rob Roy.”

“Let’s take a turn up and down the drive.” She was wearing a fur-lined coat with a hood, and Jay had his plaid cloak. They walked across the lawn, their feet crunching the frosted grass.

“What made my father like this?” Jay said. “Why does he hate me?”

She touched his cheek. “He doesn’t hate you,” she said, “although you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.”

“Then why does he treat me so badly?”

“Your father was a poor man when he married Olive Drome. He had nothing but a corner shop in a low-class district of Edinburgh. This place, that is now called Castle Jamisson, was owned by a distant cousin of Olive’s, William Drome. William was a bachelor who lived alone, and when he fell ill Olive came here to look after him. He was so grateful that he changed his will, leaving everything to Olive; and then, despite her nursing, he died.”