The Desperate Journey Read Online Free

ate, they told their parents of all that had happened at Dunrobin.
    “Is it true what Davie says, that we’ll have to leave Culmailie?” Kirsty asked her father.
    “Aye, he read the paper right,” James Murray said grimly.
    “Is it – is it because Davie stood up to him about the partan and – and I bit him?” Kirsty asked.
    “No, my lassie, it would have come anyway, though that business may have hastened it. What will happen to us has already happened to many a crofter in Sutherland, and more of us yet will have to go.”
    “But why must we be turned out of our house?” Davie demanded vehemently.
    “To make way for sheep, my laddie. Her ladyship at Dunrobin can make more money by letting her land to sheep farmers.”
    “But she is already rich. She dresses in silks and she eats meat three times a day, someone told me.”
    “No matter! Sheep count for more than men in these days.”
    Kate Murray had been listening quietly, her face pinched by unhappiness. “For generations the Murrays have lived at Culmailie,” she said. “It is out of the memory of man when Culmailie was not farmed by a Murray. Here you were born, James, and to Culmailie I came as a bride, and here your children were born. And now there will be no more Murrays at Culmailie.” She bowed her head and they were all silent for a few minutes, then she spoke again. “How long have we, James, before we must go?”
    “Five weeks,” he said unhappily.
    “But where shall we go? Where shall we go?” Kirsty cried desperately. Her mother smoothed her hair.
    “Do not weep, my bairn. There will be a way found for us,” she said with simple faith, as though, for a moment, the curtain which hid the future had been lifted for her.

The Burning of Culmailie
    For the next few weeks the children seemed to lead much their usual life; herding and milking the cows and feeding the hens. Their mother continued to make butter and cheese and “crowdie”, the soft cheesy curds that David liked so much, but James Murray no longer worked in his fields. He was frequently away at the market at Dornoch, and when he came back there was always one animal fewer in the byre. Then came the day when he sold the pig.
    “Did you get a good price for him?” Kate asked anxiously.
    “Fair enough, considering there were others with pigs to sell.” James handed the money over to her and she put it in the chest which stood beside their bed.
    “There will soon be enough,” she said, when she rose from her knees beside it.
    “Enough for what, Mother?” Kirsty asked.
    “Enough for the journey we shall have to take.”
    “We shall not go till we are forced,” James Murray burst out fiercely. “Factor Sellar shall not turn me out of my house easily.”
    “Oh, James, you will not do him violence? You must not lift your hand to him or he will have you in prison. He is only waiting for that excuse,” Kate warned her husband.
    “I shall do nothing foolish,” James promised her.
    The time drew near when the notice to quit the croft would expire. Then, on 10 May, the day before they were due to leave, James Murray’s brother John arrived on his horse from Dornoch. He wore a troubled face.
    “James, can you come at once to Dornoch? Our mother is veryill and the doctor thinks the end cannot be far.”
    James Murray’s mother kept house for John, a bachelor. John was a carpenter and joiner, employed by many of the owners of big houses in Sutherland.
    James looked at his brother in dismay. “Och, John, this is bad news indeed, and it comes at a bad time for us. You know that tomorrow I have to clear out of this house?”
    John looked helplessly at his brother. “What will you do, then? Mother is asking for you all the time. Must I go back and tell her you cannot come?”
    James made up his mind quickly. “No, you shall not do that. She has been a good mother to us.”
    “If she is wanting you, then you
must
go,” Kate said at once.
    “But what will you do about this