Free Love and Music Will Endure by Liz Macrae Shaw

at the speaker.
    ‘We’re just doing our job. Go and speak to Mr MacCaskill or Dr Lachlan MacLean. They paid us to move the people out.’ He waved his arms impatiently, making the nearest dog jump up.
    One of his companions added, ‘They need this land for keeping sheep.’
    Still the Reverend stood glowering and implacable. The dogs circled, whimpering.
    ‘You will have to answer for your actions to a higher authority on the day of Judgement.’
    Two of them shuffled and looked away but their leader shrugged, turned his back and, whistling to the dogs, sauntered off down the hill.
    Màiri could contain herself no longer, ‘Where have you driven them away to?’ she shouted.
    ‘A fiery lass, is it? Like the old woman who lived in this house. She made a fuss too. Wouldn’t leave until we made it too hot for her. Then she took to her heels, squawking like an old hen.’
    Màiri bent down and picked up a jagged stone. Carmichael sprang forward and grabbed her wrist as she bent her arm back to aim.
    ‘Drop it at once. You’re only making things worse.’
    She struggled against his grip. ‘They’ve driven all these poor people from their homes. They must be stopped.’
    ‘But this isn’t the way to do it. “Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord.”’
    ‘I wonder which path they took. We didn’t see anyone coming up here,’ Màiri said, when she had got her breath back.
    ‘We can’t ask those bailiffs now,’ he replied.
    She hurled the stone away.
    ‘It was a mistake to bring you when you’re so intemperate.’
    She didn’t seem to hear him. ‘They can’t be far away. They would be slow carrying all their belongings with them.’
    His expression was still pinched and disapproving. ‘They would have taken the shore path beside
Beinn Buidhe na Creige
towards the church.’
    As they turned their horses’ heads Màiri thought bitterly how the melting stores of cheese would glow as brightly as the Yellow Hill of the Sunlight itself as they poured down the walls of theburning house. As Reverend Carmichael had predicted they found the people, sitting in hunched groups inside the church, stunned and blank faced. Even the children were cowed and silent. The minister moved among them, distributing food and blankets but they seemed barely to notice him. She went outside to gather firewood and came across an older woman among the gravestones. She was sobbing as she scraped up handfuls of earth, scooping them into a small dish. Màiri knelt down beside her.
    ‘I’m taking my last memory of the land. I’ll never return to live and be buried with my forbears here.’
    Màiri touched her arm. She could find no words. After she had lit a fire to warm them she found the old woman whose stores had been destroyed. She stared blindly in front of her, her lips mumbling and her hands plucking at her shawl like the scrabbling claws of a trapped bird.
    ‘All that good food wasted. They even used my basins of milk to douse the fireplace. How will I live?’ Rivers of tears poured down the crevices of her cheeks. She brushed her hand across to stem the flow. ‘What use are tears? I’ve shed more tears already than all the milk my cow ever gave me.’
    There was no time to think while Màiri and the minister did what they could to help. Some families were already setting out to the homes of relatives. They shouldered clattering pots and pans, held drag-footed children by the hand and coaxed along lowing cattle. One of the men complained that they had not been allowed time to lift down any of the roof timbers. She gasped, the wood was so precious. It was never left to waste. How would they be able to build a new house? They put the weakest among them on the horses; a new mother and her tiny, bleating baby, the bewildered old woman and two small children stumbling with fear and exhaustion. As they led the sad, bedraggled group back to Carbost Màiri’s head teemed with questions.
    ‘Why’ve they been treated like