Finlay’s mother loved her only son. She encouraged him in his love of nature and his gentle
patient way with animals. Finlay’s father loved him also, but he already had four daughters.
His wife’s health had suffered in her loyal desire to bring him a son and he knew this was his
last chance to have a lad to mould in his own image.
Donald McLeod had long dreamed of days spent fishing the loch together for salmon and,
best of all, teaching a young McLeod to stalk the proud red deer across the heather covered
hills ; and shoot them.
The first time Finlay saw a hook baited he shuddered and, when the hook caught a fish and
the barb had to be removed from the fish’s mouth, he cried. Donald forgave him – he was
only five! Morag, his oldest sister would have willingly gone shooting and fishing with her
father but girls had work to do. They had to learn to cook the fish and game, bake the bread,
tend the fires and mend the clothes.
By the time Finlay was ten Donald had accepted that forcing him to witness the hunting and
killing that, as a ghillie was both the business and the joy of his life, was not going to change
his son’s nature. It made him bitter and ashamed for the other men to see his son turn away
sick and disgusted. To him it was both an insult to his own way of life and a sign of
cowardice when the boy, handed a gun, would shake so much that there was more chance
of him hitting the moon than bringing down the quarry.
To Finlay, being sent away to school, though he missed his mother and sisters, was a release
from the torment of trying to please his father and earning only his scorn. He did well at the
school where he boarded with the Headmaster’s family. Mr Sullivan was a quiet man at
home, with his wife and two small daughters but, in the classroom, where he taught the
older boys, he supported those who were willing to work and was not averse to using a cane
on those who caused any disruption. He didn’t tolerate bullying and Finlay found, for the
first time, someone who appreciated his ability to write a smooth elegant hand, to compose
verses and to collect, identify and press wild flowers. At home these skills hadn’t been
encouraged, even in the girls, and were certainly not considered manly pursuits. At the
village school he had been the constant target of the rough farm boys while here, although
the same rough torments were handed out, he was left alone for fear of Mr Sullivan’s cane.
In the long holidays Finlay came home to the hills of his childhood. He was not lazy and as he grew taller and stronger he willingly helped with chores about the house and bothy. Morag married and the other girls went into service at the Laird’s house and his mother, her strength failing, was glad of her strong and willing son. Often though, he managed to escape into the hills, his ‘piece’ in a little canvas bag hung over his back. Besides the cheese and oatcake this also carried his sketching pad and pencil and a small hammer. Fin would walk along the lochside, collecting plants to study or climb high into the hills, stalking the deer with every bit of skill learned from his father, and then drawing their likeness on his pad. From time to time he found strange outcrops of rock and used his hammer to knock out samples for later identification as Mr Sullivan, a keen amateur geologist, had taught him. Locally they thought he was a ‘wee bit of a daftie’ and avoided him. Besides they had better things to do; swimming, fishing, chasing the girls, and poaching off the Laird’s estate. It was on one of these solitary expeditions that Fin, about to chip away at an interesting outcrop of rock, came upon a bunch of his former tormentors. An eerie scream, like a tormented spirit, drew him to a hollow surrounded by hills. Hidden by a shoulder of rock he watched as the boys stood in a circle watching something that was happening on the ground in the centre. Again the scream. It reminded Fin of a deer that one of the Laird’s visitors had wounded on a shoot, which had to be followed and put out of its misery. His blood ran cold. One of the lads laughed and pushed his companion aside, revealing a terrible sight. On the ground was a wounded doe, struggling through her pain to give birth. As the lads watched, egging each other on with cries of “Come on Mammy, ye can do better than that”, and “Which one d’ye think’ll taste sweeter?”, the tiny creature slithered onto the ground and the mother staggered to her feet and turned to face her enemies. At last Fin realised what they intended to do. As well as their guns they each carried a sgean dhu (the traditional ‘black knife’ that lived in a holster in their thick wool socks). Each had drawn his dagger and they were taking turns to throw, using the helpless faun as a target.
Finlay McLeod let out a roar and rushed down the hillside, the blood pulsing in his head and
a red mist clouding his vision. The rock hammer was still in his left hand and a stout walking
stick in his right but, after the sight he had just witnessed, he would have attacked them
with his bare hands!
Before the lads understood what was happening one lay unconscious, laid out by Finlay’s
stick, one had blood streaming from his head where the rock hammer had gouged a sizeable
hole and of the other two, one was cowering on the ground with his hands covering his
head and the other was trying to break the running record from the last Highland Games as
he headed off down the hill.
When Finlay McLeod was an eccentric old man, still tramping the hills in retirement from his
teaching in Edinburgh, the locals still avoided him, referring to him as ‘Mad McLeod’, but
they had learned the truth of the old adage:
“Beware the anger of a patient man”!