The Jacobite Trilogy: The Flight of the Heron, The Gleam in the North & The Dark Mile. 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
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2021 OK Publishing
EAN 4064066389352
Table of Contents
THE FLIGHT OF THE HERON
“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
IV. ‘Your Debtor, Ewen Cameron’
V. The Heron’s Flight is Ended
PROLOGUE
A PROMISE OF FAIR WEATHER
(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