Graeme Burnet: His Bloody Project

At the junction of the track connecting Culduie to the road is the house of Kenny Smoke, which, being the only one boasting a slate roof, is the finest in the village. The other eight houses are constructed from stones reinforced with turf and have thatch roofs. Each house has one or two glazed windows. My own family’s house is the northernmost of the village and sits somewhat at an angle, so that while the other houses look out towards the bay, ours faces the village. The home of Lachlan Broad is situated at the opposite end of the track, and, after that of Kenny Smoke, is the second largest in the village. Aside from those mentioned, the houses are occupied by two further families of the clan Mackenzie; the MacBeath family; Mr and Mrs Gillanders, whose children have all gone; our neighbour Mr Gregor and his family; and Mrs Finlayson, a widow. Aside from the nine houses there are various outbuildings, many of quite rude construction, which are used for housing livestock, storing tools and such like. That is the extent of our community.

Our own house comprises two chambers. The greater part consists of the byre and, to the right of the door, our living quarters. The floor slopes downwards a little towards the sea, which prevents the dung from the animals running into our quarters. The byre is partitioned by a balustrade constructed from scraps of wood gathered from the shore. In the middle of the living area is the fire and, beyond that, the table at which we take our meals. Aside from the table, our furniture consists of two sturdy benches, my father’s armchair and a large wooden dresser, which belonged to my mother’s family before she was married. I sleep on a bunk with my younger brother and sister at the far end of the room. The second chamber at the back of the house is where my father and elder sister sleep; Jetta in a box-bed my father constructed for this purpose. I am envious of my sister’s bed and often dreamt of lying with her there, but it is warmer in the main chamber and in the black months when the animals are indoors, I take pleasure in the soft sounds they make. We keep two milk cows and six sheep, which is what is allowed to us by the division of the common grazings.

I should state from the outset that some bad blood existed between my father and Lachlan Mackenzie long before I was born. I cannot testify to the source of this animosity, for my father has never spoken of it. Nor do I know upon whose side the fault lies; whether this enmity arose in their lifetimes, or is the product of some ancient grudge. In these parts it is not uncommon for grievances to be nursed long after their original source is forgotten. It is to my father’s credit that he never endeavoured to perpetuate this feud by proselytising to myself or other members of our family. For this reason, I believe that he must have wished for whatever grievance existed between our two families to be laid to rest.

As a small boy, I was quite terrified of Lachlan Broad and avoided venturing beyond the junction to the end of the village where the members of the clan Mackenzie are concentrated. In addition to that of Lachlan Broad, there are the families of his brother, Aeneas, and his cousin, Peter, and those three are notorious for their carousing and frequent involvement in altercations at the inn in Applecross. They are all three great powerful fellows, who take pleasure in the knowledge that people step aside to let them pass. On one occasion, when I was five or six years old, I was flying a kite my father had made me from some scraps of sackcloth. The kite plunged into some crops and I ran, quite unthinking, to retrieve it. I was on my knees trying to disentangle the string from among the corn when I felt myself gripped on the shoulder by a great hand and roughly hauled to track. I was still clutching my kite and Lachlan Broad tore it from me and dashed it to the ground. He then hit me on the side of the head with the flat of his hand, knocking me down. I was so frightened that I lost control of my bladder, causing our neighbour a great deal of mirth. I was then picked up and dragged the length of the village, where Broad berated my father for the damage I had done to his crops. The commotion brought my mother to the door and at this point Broad released me from his grip and I scuttled into the house like a scared dog and cowered in the byre. Later that evening, Lachlan Broad returned to our house and demanded five shillings in compensation for the portion of his crops I had destroyed. I hid in the back chamber with my ear to the door. My mother refused, arguing that if any damage had been done to his crops, it had been caused by him dragging me through his rig. Broad then took his complaint to the constable, who dismissed it. One morning, some days later, my father found that a great portion of our crops had been trampled underfoot overnight. It was not known who carried out this destruction, but no one doubted that it was Lachlan Broad and his kinsmen.

As I grew older, I never entered the lower end of the village without an accompanying sense of foreboding, and this feeling has never left me.

* * *

My father was born in Culduie and lived as a boy in the house in which we now dwell. I know little of his childhood, only that he attended school rarely, and there were hardships such as my generation has not known. I have never seen my father do more than sign his name and, although he insists he can write, a pen sits awkwardly in his fist. He has, in any case, little need for writing. There is nothing he requires to commit to paper. My father is wont to remind us of our good fortune in being brought up in the current times with the luxuries of tea, sugar and other shop-bought goods.

My mother’s father was a carpenter who built furniture for merchants in Kyle of Lochalsh and Skye, and sailed his wares round the coast. For some years my father had a third share in a fishing vessel, which anchored in Toscaig. The other parties in this concern were his own brother, Iain, and my mother’s brother, whose name was also Iain. The boat was named The Gannet , but was always referred to as ‘The Two Iains’, which irked my father as he was the eldest of the three and, by virtue of this, thought himself head of the enterprise. As a girl, my mother liked to go to the pier to greet The Two Iains. It was assumed that she went to welcome her brother, but her real purpose was to watch my father as he stepped from the boat, his foremost foot hovering above the water as he waited for the swell to propel the vessel to the quay. He would then secure the rope to a bollard and heave the boat to the wall, all this accomplished as if he was quite unaware of being observed. My father was not a handsome man, but the unhurried manner in which he went about the business of tethering the boat drew my mother’s admiration. There was something, she liked to tell us, in his flickering dark eyes which set a quickening in her throat. If my father was nearby, he would tell my mother to stop her tittle-tattle, but he did so in a tone which betrayed that he took pleasure in hearing it.

Our mother was the great beauty of the parish and could have had her pick of the young men. In consequence, my father was far too bashful to ever address a word to her. One evening towards the end of the herring season of 1850, a storm broke and the little vessel was smashed against rocks some miles south of the harbour. My father swam to safety but the two Iains were lost. Father never spoke of this incident, but he never again set foot on a boat, nor would he allow his offspring to do so. To those ignorant of this episode in his past, he must have seemed to have an irrational fear of the sea. It is due to this incident that it came to be regarded in these parts as inauspicious to venture into an enterprise with one’s namesake. Even my father, who scorns superstition, avoids doing business with anyone who shares his name.