School of the Moon by Stuart McHardy

Author:Stuart McHardy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Birlinn

An Gille Dubh nam Mairt, The Dark Lad of the Cattle

Now although the cateran were brought up within the strict code of honour that traditionally applied to all Highland warriors, human nature is a complex thing. Apart from blood feuds that arose from time to time there were also examples of downright treacherous behaviour that would almost invariably lead to further acts of violence. One winter’s night back in the late 17th century in Glen Urquhart, the gudewife of Shewglie heard knocking at her door. It was a bitterly cold night, and when she went to the door she found a young woman she had never seen before who was obviously about to give birth. The poor lassie had been deserted by a travelling man she had married and was too ashamed to go back to her own people in Lochaber. She had wandered through the Highlands, not knowing what was to become of her. Once the baby was born, a healthy boy, the young lass wanted nothing more to do with him. Rather than try and stay where she was and raise the child among strangers, she wanted to return home, but without the baby.

It was a tragic story, and even though the gudewife of Shewglie thought it a dreadful thing to abandon a child she agreed that the boy could stay and be raised there in the glen. However, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions they say, and as he wasn’t her own child she didn’t take as good care of him as she should have, and the laddie wasn’t even christened. As he got a little older he was sent to tend the cattle at Shewglie and became known as An Gille Dubh nam Mairt. It was all the name he was ever given. Children being the way they always have been, he was given a hard time in his growing up about his origins. Nobody knew who his father was and as he hadn’t even been christened he couldn’t really be seen as one of the Grant clan, even if they were the only people he knew. The sad fact was that he not only did not know who his father was, he did not know who his mother had been either, and when he asked the woman at Shewglie, she had nothing she could tell him, other than that his mother had said she came originally from Lochaber. Now back then clan feelings ran very strong and there is no doubt that An Gille Dubh felt himself to be an outsider amongst the Grants in Glenurquhart. So as soon as he could, he up and left Glenurquhart for Lochaber, where he thought he might at least feel a bit at home. The sad thing was that no one really missed him at all; he had never been taken into the Grant family at Shewglie, a lack of hospitality that in time would prove to have been costly.

In 1692 An Gille Dubh came back to the glen, but he was the guide for a raiding group from Lochaber.

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