Free The Rogues by Jane Yolen and Robert J. Harris

silent.
    â€œRemember,” Da said, “remember how the old laird sent the sheep merchants packing when he saw his people at the door. Perhaps this laird will rise to his heritage.”
    There was some grumbling, and someone shouted out, “We’ll see a trout rise in winter before that happens!”
    But stocky Sandy Philipson piped up, “Ye’re right, Murdo. There’s still a bond between a chief and his people.”
    What bond , I wondered, if he would even try and put his own niece out in the cold ?
    â€œAye, presenting our grievances is better than doing nothing,” agreed Tam.
    â€œIt’s worse than doing nothing,” declared a new voice. “It’s falling to yer knees and begging. Nae like men but like weak old women.”
    All heads turned, and there was a murmur of surprise as a tall, unshaven man in a wide-brimmed black hat stepped out of the shadows of the back of the kirk. He wore a long blue coat strapped around the middle with a leather belt and high military boots. There was a musket tucked under his right arm and a cluster of whisky jugs tied together with twine that hung from his left shoulder. He carried himself with an air of casual defiance that made him stand out against the grey inner walls of the kirk.
    â€œI hadn’t thought to see ye here, Dunbar,” said Da.
    Now I knew who he was: Alan Dunbar, the whisky runner. The English king had long ago banned the Highlanders from keeping weapons, but Dunbar had got his gun fighting as a soldier in the king’s pay.
    I nudged Lachlan, and he turned to give me back a big-eyed stare.
    â€œThe Rogue o’ the Hills,” he whispered.
    I nodded. We’d heard his name before, but neither of us had ever met him. I stared as he walked forward, his boots a slow drumbeat on the kirk floor. There was something big about him, bigger than any of the other men. And he’d dared to say aloud what I had only whispered to myself.
    He spoke in time to each step, his voice echoing in the silent kirk. “When men get to blethering, there’s a thirst sure to follow.” He grinned and rattled the jugs under his left arm. “And a thirsty man is a ready market for my whisky.”
    â€œYou’ve the devil’s own nerve,” said Tam, “to come peddling your lawless brew here in God’s own house.”
    â€œI force nae man to buy,” Dunbar responded innocently, “and any man who does is free to go to the excise man and pay the duty on his jar.”
    â€œWhich is more than ye’ll ever do,” said Da.
    Dunbar was at the front of the kirk now, with his back to the communion table, and he stood still, slowly looking over the congregation. Then, as if preaching, he said in his strong voice, “The day the government does me a favor, that’s when they can have my payment.”
    A few of the men laughed out loud.
    â€œYe all know my story.”
    I leaned forward. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
    â€œI took the king’s shilling when only a lad and went off across the sea to fight the French and see off that wee corporal, Napoleon,” he said, as if telling a tale over a glass of whisky by the fire. “Five years of that, of blood running like mountain streams. And when I came home, was there a parcel of land waiting for me as promised?”
    We were all silent, waiting. Even those who already knew his story.
    Dunbar smiled, but there was no comfort in it. He shook his head. “Nae, there was nothing. Nothing ! My family had been thrown off their farm to make way for sheep. For sheep ! With no roof over their heads and no money in their purse, my ma and da died in the hills that very winter, hand in hand in a snowdrift.”
    â€œThat was in Glengarry territory, not here,” said Da. “Here they’d have been taken in. No left to starve in the snow.”
    I thought: And did we take in the lovely Fiona and her brothers ?
    Dunbar