The Rogues Read Online Free Page A

the very words hurting my tongue. “Fought with guns and swords, whenever the lairds asked for their service. And now our folk are to wander and starve?”
    â€œThere’s always the mines,” said Josie thinly. “Hard as that is, there’s money to be had there.”
    I shook my head and started it aching again. “That’s a hard turn for them that’s lived under the sun all these years. It’s like being thrown in a dungeon for committing no crime at all.” I was trembling now, more in rage than weakness.
    By this time we’d reached the Lodge, and Josie managed to open the door while still supporting me.
    â€œWell, all that’s left then is to take a ship to the New World,” she said, pushing me through. “That’s for those with the courage to try it. Many from Glendoun took that road. I suspect many more will follow.”
    â€œThe New World,” I repeated. The words had a sweet ring to them, as if she were talking about heaven.
    â€œAye, young Macallan, but it’s far away across the ocean,” she said, “a world away from Scotland, full of new dangers.”
    I could hear a note in her voice that told me she wasn’t thinking only of the poor crofters, but of where she herself might be driven by her uncle. And for the first time I gave thought to crossing the waters that divided us from the Americas. I knew I had the courage, but did I have the will?
    Just then the inside of the Lodge was enough of a new world for me. There must have been nearly a dozen rooms branching off from the wide hallway. It was hard to say why so many were needed. The cottage I lived in may have been only a but and ben—two rooms—but we got along just fine in it: Da, Cousin Ishbel, Lachlan, and me.
    Here, though, besides room after room, opening one into the other, was something I had never seen before—little paintings of trees and flowers in round frames hanging on the walls. I had seen a picture only once in my entire life. Cousin Ishbel had been given a wee portrait of a child, small enough to sit in the palm of her hand, with a thin gold frame about it. It had been a gift for bringing a lady’s baby into the world. Ishbel kept the picture wrapped in a bit of plaid for safety and had shown it to us only the once. But Bonnie Josie’s pictures were much bigger, hanging on the wall for all to see. I wanted to go up close and stare at them, fall into them, but my eyes were too blurry. Besides, Josie was still speaking. I turned to look at her.
    â€œIt’s no life of ease in the far Americas either,” she said. “Or so I hear. The land can be as hard and unforgiving as it is here. But at least there’s a chance for freedom there.”
    â€œCan a man have land he can’t be thrown off?”
    â€œAye. And there’s land there for the taking. Not just for the lairds, but for the farmers too. That’s not too big a dream for honest folk, now—is it?”
    I had started nodding in agreement when dizziness seized me and my legs gave way. I cursed myself under my breath for showing such weakness, but even my cursing lacked strength. I leaned on the arm of a covered chair, and Josie gradually drew me up again.
    â€œOnly a wee bit farther, lad,” she said. “I’ve a place where you can lie down and sleep and no one will disturb you.”
    We carried on through to the back of the house—room after room—the air of which was scented with flowers. Josie led me into a small ben off the kitchen and helped me lie down on a straw pallet. Here the flower smell was overcome by a richer odor, of meat cooking and something baking on a griddle. My stomach growled, but my head did too, as if the idea of food would only make me dizzier.
    â€œThis is supposed to be a pantry,” Josie said, “where foodstuffs are kept, but sometimes we need a place for those folk who can’t be left outside when the