The Jacobite Trilogy. D. K. Broster

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       D. K. Broster

      The Jacobite Trilogy

       The Flight of the Heron, The Gleam in the North & The Dark Mile

      e-artnow, 2021

       Contact: [email protected]

      EAN: 4064066387334

Table of Contents

       The Flight of the Heron

       The Gleam in the North

       The Dark Mile

      THE FLIGHT OF THE HERON

       Table of Contents

      “But the heron’s flight is that of a

       celestial messenger bearing important, if

       not happy, tidings to an expectant people.”

      —“V.” As You See It.

       Table of Contents

       Prologue. A Promise of Fair Weather

       I. Through English Eyes

       Chapter I

       Chapter II

       Chapter III

       Chapter IV

       Chapter V

       Chapter VI

       II. Flood-tide

       Chapter I

       Chapter II

       Chapter III

       Chapter IV

       III. The Ebb

       Chapter I

       Chapter II

       Chapter III

       Chapter IV

       Chapter V

       IV. ‘Your Debtor, Ewen Cameron’

       Chapter I

       Chapter II

       Chapter III

       Chapter IV

       Chapter V

       Chapter VI

       Chapter VII

       V. The Heron’s Flight is Ended

       Chapter I

       Chapter II

       Chapter III

       Chapter IV

       Chapter V

       Epilogue. Harbour of Grace

      PROLOGUE

       A PROMISE OF FAIR WEATHER

       Table of Contents

      (1)

      The sun had been up for a couple of hours, and now, by six o’clock, there was scarcely a cloud in the sky; even the peaked summit of Ben Tee, away to the north-east, had no more than the faintest veil floating over it. On all the western slopes the transfiguring light, as it crept lower and lower, was busy picking out the patches of July bell-heather and painting them an even deeper carmine; and the mountains round were smiling (where sometimes they frowned) on Loch na h-Iolaire, to-day a shining jewel which to-morrow might be a mere blot of grey steel. It was going to be a very fine day, and in the West of Scotland such are none too plentiful.

      Loch na h-Iolaire, the Loch of the Eagle, was not large—little more than a mile long, and at its greatest breadth perhaps a quarter of a mile wide. It lay among the encircling hills like a fairy pool come upon in dreams; yet it had not the desolate quality of the high mountain tarns, whose black waters lie shoreless at the foot of precipices. Loch na h-Iolaire was set in a level space as wide as itself. At one end was a multitude of silver-stemmed birches, of whom some loved the loch (or their own reflection) so dearly that they leaned over it until the veil of their hair almost brushed its surface; and with these court ladies stood a guard of very old pines, severe and beautiful, and here and there was the feathered bravery of a rowan tree. Everywhere underfoot lay a carpet of bogmyrtle and cranberry, pressing up to the feet of the pungent-berried junipers and the bushes of the flaming broom, now but dying fires. And where this shore was widest it unexpectedly sent out into the lake a jutting crag of red granite, grown upon in every cranny with heather, and crowned with two immense Scots pines.

      The loch’s beauty, on this early summer morning of 1745, seemed at first to be a lonely and unappreciated loveliness, yet it was