Free Sarah Gabriel by Highland Groom Page B

woolen bag, inside which was a sheep’s stretchable bladder—the set of bag and four chanters was old, having belonged to his own grandfather—and then he tucked the full bag up under his arm and set his fingertips flying over the holes along the main chant pipe. The tune was older than the bagpipehe played, and had been played in these hills by so many pipers over so many generations that the echo had a familiar ring to it, as if the hills themselves knew the song as well.
    Dougal had always been a solitary sort of piper, playing mostly for his own listening, and for whatever sheep, cattle, mountain goats, and wandering locals happened to hear. He did not play at weddings or funerals, or for the monthly ceilidhs held alternatively in the two villages in the glen—Garloch at the northern end and Drumcairn at its southernmost point, with the lands of Kinloch, his own estate, set nearly halfway between the two, in the east. The two villages had longtime rivalries enough between them, such as ceilidhs, kirks, ball games, free trading, and fine whisky brews. The lairds of Kinloch had done their best to remain noncommittal. He remembered that his father had played for the people of the glen on local occasions, but he had rarely done so himself, leaving that to his uncle Fergus MacGregor.
    Keeping apart from what went on in the glen was not a lesson he had learned from his father before John MacGregor had passed too soon—it was something Dougal had learned on his own, as a boy growing up a laird, with the faith and responsibility of many families on his shoulders. He had learned from his father to be loyal to those folks, and that faith he always kept, though he was not about to play the pipes for them. Truth was,he did not think he was very good at it, though he enjoyed it for himself.
    He had learned a good deal from his father, and after John was gone, from his father’s brothers, Ranald, Hamish, and Fergus, and from old Hector, too—together his kinsmen had taught Dougal nearly all he knew. He could credit the fine quality of Kinloch whisky to his father and old Hector; the playing of the pipes to the dark-haired blacksmith, Fergus; his knowledge of herding and husbandry to stodgy, calm Ranald; and an ability to fix almost anything that needed repair to Uncle Hamish.
    Anything, that was, except that blasted coach, which had confounded both Dougal and Hamish’s efforts. As soon as the thing seemed fixed, it began to shimmy and creak once again.
    What was broken stayed broken sometimes, he told himself, and he was learning to accept that. But he would rather fix troublesome coaches than his own heart. Once broken, it stayed that way—first with the early loss of his mother, then his father, and finally a girl he would have married, who would have kept a neat house and a kind bed for him. But she had asked him to give up smuggling, and he had refused; and so she had left the glen to marry a shepherd.
    And may she be happy with her four small children and her placid husband, he thought. He had learned, in the years since then, that he was better off without a wife.
    He glanced toward the loch that stretched for miles beside the glen, with the pale ribbon of the loch side road running alongside it, visible for a long way in either direction. Pausing in the tune he played—the last note rang out like a lamb’s bleat—he looked around.
    The old coach was nowhere to be seen on the long stretch of the road.
    Then he saw his uncle walking over a ridge toward him, with two dogs at his heels, the leggy gray beasts whose forebears had ambled the halls of Kinloch House for generations. Though they looked majestic and formidable, the reality of this lazy pair, Dougal knew, was nothing more ambitious than flopping in doorways. Yet Sorcha and Mhor were good guardians and amiable companions—and their presence now meant that Hamish had returned to Kinloch House.
    “So you did not drive down to Auchnashee,” Dougal said as Hamish