To Catch a Falling Star (The Graham Saga Book 8) by Anna Belfrage

Author:Anna Belfrage [Belfrage, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Timelight Press
Published: 2017-06-20T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 27

It was not quite daybreak when the men from Cumnock galloped into their yard the day after, demanding that Bluidy Clavers be turned over to them, now.

“How do they know—?” Alex began, but then her eyes found Robin, one of Rosie’s sons, and she had her answer.

Rosie gave her a belligerent look as if saying that she wasn’t about to aid a man responsible for so much death and sorrow, a man who slaughtered Covenanters right, left and centre without any compunction whatsoever.

“He isn’t here,” Matthew told the men, and they bristled and shouted, but when first Samuel, then Isaac appeared with their rifle-bored flintlocks, when Coll stepped into the yard with a swagger and an evident familiarity with the sword in his hand, they muttered and fell away. “He won’t be coming back,” Matthew said, and that met a murmur of grudging approval, and one by one the men rode off.

For a long time, Matthew regarded Robbie. The old, shrunken man twisted under the master’s evaluating gaze, sending angry looks at his wife and his son.

“You’d best pack up your things,” Matthew said. Rosie gasped, her hands clutching at her dirty apron. “I won’t be betrayed by my own people.” A swift lunge, and Robin was whimpering in his grip.

“Your people? And where were you, master, during the killing years?” Rosie challenged. “What help were you to us when Bluidy Clavers and his men roamed the land?”

“You know where I was, and you know why. I didn’t leave out of free choice, did I?” He stared at her until Rosie lowered her eyes and shook her head. Matthew turned back to Robbie. “This time you may stay, but this son of yours isn’t welcome on my land.” He released Robin to land on his knees in the mud. Robbie muttered a heartfelt thank you, grabbed his wife hard by the arm, and dragged her off.

As a consequence, it was a depressing Hogmanay, for all that Alex had cooked and Matthew opened casks of beer and cider. The tenants came, ate and drank, drank some more, but no matter how the fiddler tried, the dancing was half-hearted at best, and Alex could see Matthew was far too aware of the people who were missing: his cousins, his friends of old, his closest neighbours…

Well before midnight, he disappeared out into the night, and an hour or so later, Alex found him where she’d known he’d be, up on the hill. At least he’d been wise enough to use his crutches rather than his cane, but it must have been a struggle to get all the way up here on his own.

The night was bitterly cold, the stars strewn like shards of crushed glass on a velvet background. Matthew was sitting at the point from where one could see all of Hillview – in the night mostly darker shapes against a dark background, but from the barn light still spilled, and strands of music drifted up through the air. She

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