Corrag. Susan Fletcher

I said. But what I also thought was why? Why would a man choose such a life? To butcher and burn? To hurt other souls. It made no sense to my small ears, and had no good in it – I said so. There are other ways to live.

      He sighed. Aye – perhaps. But it was always the way in these parts. Such hatred in the air…You could smell it in the wood-smoke, and hear it in the wind…Still can. A Scot may cut an Englishman down but he’d give his own life for the Scot by his side, and so it is in England, also. That hasn’t changed in my lifetime. Nor will it. There’s been too much fighting and slyness to ever clean the air of it. He shook his head. Politics…

      This made me think. In the dusk and in the dripping trees, I said Scotland to myself. If it was not for their accents, this place felt like England to me.

       Slyness?

      He turned his eyes to look at me. He narrowed them. You don’t know much of countries, do you? Of thrones? Loyalties? He shook his head a little. If you’re going north-and-west, my wee thing, you should know more than you do.

      We sat by the fire, that night. I stitched at a jerkin which was half-undone, and as I sewed he told me what he called must-knows, and truths.

       Scotland is two countries.

      I pricked my thumb. Two? Scotland? Two?

      England says one. But England’s wrong about that. Highland and Lowland, he told me. Like two different worlds. He threw on a pine branch, and out came its smell – sweet, and like Christmas.

       Which one is this? That we’re in?

      These are the borders, he said. Which is its own country too, in many ways. But they lead into the Lowland parts not far from here – and the Lowlands are green, and lush. More people live in them. They are civil people, too, or so they like to say. They say they’re more learned, more wise of the world than the rest. They speak English as we do. ’Tis the regal part – the Queen Mary who is dead now rode to her Bothwell’s castle, near here, and there is Edinburgh which is reekie and tall, but that’s a true city. He shook his head. I’ll never see it. Carlisle’s as big as I’ll see in my life.

       That’s big. Cora said so.

       But not like Edinburgh is. They say its castle is so high that you might see London from it. It’s where they hung a bishop from the palace walls, and every new king or queen rides the Royal Mile so the crowds may cheer and wave at them.

      I don’t like kings I said.

      I’m not too fond myself. But most Lowlanders are favouring this new Orange king, and – he pointed – you should remember this.

      I scowled. It was the Orange king’s wheezes that had helped to put witch on Cora, and I sewed very firmly. I tugged my needle through.

       But the Highlands…

      I glanced up.

       They are another world. I have never seen them either – they are far, far to the north and I’m too old to see them now. But they say it’s a properly wild place to be. Wind and rain, and bogs, and wolves calling. And ’tis a fiercer folk who live in that wild land, for it takes a hardy soul to survive it.

       Hardy?

      Aye. Savage. No laws – or not the laws that Lowland folk live by. They have their own language. Their own faith. He sipped from his broth. He found a bone in it, plucked it out, looked at it. Then he put it in the fire, said they are hated.

       By who?

       Lowland hates Highland like horses hate flies. You’ll see that, soon enough.

       Why?

      He shrugged. For being lawless. For having their Catholic ways. They say the Highland parts weigh this nation down…That the clans are barbarous. They scrap amongst themselves, is what I hear – and there are many known rogues up there. Even I know of them – me! Down here! The MacDonalds, mostly.

       Who?

       A clan with as many branches as a tree has. The Glencoe ones are spoken of plenty – their flashing blades…Thieving.

      I did a stitch. I thought of how little I knew of the world. Of how far away my old life was, with its holly, and frogs in marshes. It seemed a good life, briefly – that Thorneyburnbank one. I had known it, and its people. I’d not met a person who spoke a language of their own. This life, now, seemed harder. More shadows to pass by.

      I was quiet for a time. Then I whispered what of us? Of people like me? What does witch mean here? They hang them or drown them in pools, where I’m from. Or they try them by a judge, and do not kill them – but they are called witch for forever, then, and have stones thrown at them all their lives.

      He watched me. How he looked at me made me wonder if he’d ever had a child at all – for it was the kind of gentle look a parent gives. It was partly sad. Maybe he wished I might have more than this – more than witch, and sewing jerkins in a wood. He rubbed his plum-red patch with the heel of his hand. There were fevers in my youth, I’ll say that. Witch-hunting times – as there were in the south. They burnt a woman in Fife and in the market square they trod on a wetness that must have been her. Her body. Maybe he saw my face, for he said very quickly that was east. That was out in fishing villages, where it’s been worst. So don’t go east.