High on a Mountain by Tommie Lyn

going to be a
married man. I never thought I’d see the day.”
    “Can you help me?” Ailean asked. “Tell me
what I’m supposed to do?”
    “I could do that,” Coinneach said with a
grin. “First, you have to ask the girl’s father for permission to
marry her.”
    “She doesn’t have a father. He’s dead.”
    “Oh. Doesn’t she have a brother, an uncle, a
grandfather?”
    “I think she has a grandfather.”
    “You think—don’t you know?”
    “Well, I haven’t met her family yet—”
    “What? You’ve been courting this girl,
haven’t you? How could you not have met her family?” Coinneach
paused. He compressed his lips, and his eyebrows drew together.
“You haven’t been courting her. You’ve been seeing her behind her
family’s back.”
    “Well, I go to see her, but—”
    “But not at her house, where her family can
supervise.”
    “No. Was I supposed to?”
    Coinneach shook his head, rubbed his hands
over his face, took them away and glared at his brother. “Ailean,
don’t you know anything? You’ve compromised her, compromised
yourself. You’ve behaved dishonorably. Who knows if they will
accept you now.”
    Ailean sat in silence. A scarlet stain crept
up his throat and colored his face.
    “Listen, you can’t go through life jumping in
and doing things just because they suit your fancy. You have to
behave. Do what you’re supposed to.”
    “I didn’t know I was doing anything
wrong.”
    “There’s no help for it now. You’ll have to
do the best you can to smooth things over.”
    “How?”
    “You’ll have to ask the grandfather for her
hand. And who will you take to speak for you?”
    “What do you mean, speak for me?”
    “You have to take someone with you to speak
to the grandfather. He’ll say things about what a good catch you
are.”
    “But who can I take? Would you go?”
    “No, it would be better if someone else goes,
not your brother. How about Raghnall? He spoke to Una’s father for
me,” Coinneach said, turning his eyes to his wife.
    “Aye, that he did,” Una said with a
smile.
    “So, how do I do this? How do I ask for her
hand?”
    “Take Raghnall. He knows what to say. He’ll
help you.”
    Ailean rubbed his bare foot back and forth
impatiently on the dirt floor. He’d had no idea what was involved
in setting up a wedding. He’d assumed he’d go ask her mother if he
could marry Mùirne, and then, well, he expected to get married.
Now, he was finding out there was much more to it. He wished he had
paid closer attention to the proceedings when Coinneach and Una
married.
    “This is going to be more complicated than I
expected. And I told her I’d come tomorrow to ask for her
hand.”
    “Then go ask Raghnall if he’ll go tomorrow.
What’s the problem with that?”
    “Da says I have to talk to Ruairidh tomorrow
to ask for permission to build a house for Mùirne on the
croft.”
    “Oh,” said Coinneach. “Then you’ll have to
talk to Ruairidh, like Da said.”
    “But Mùirne is expecting me tomorrow. What
will she think when I don’t come?”
    “You’ll have to go the next day. You can’t
ask for the girl’s hand in marriage if you have no home to take her
to.”
    “But—”
    “Listen to me,” Coinneach said, his voice
stern and hard. “I know how you are. You think you can do whatever
you please. Sometimes, you get away with it. But in an important
matter like this, you need to pay attention to what I’m telling you
and do the right thing. Maybe you can repair the damage you’ve
already done.”
    He paused again, cocked his head and glared
at Ailean. “Does Da know what you’ve been doing? That you haven’t
been behaving honorably toward this girl?”
    Ailean remained silent, and his face reddened
again.
    Coinneach shook his head and audibly exhaled
in a disgusted grunt. “I thought not. Go home and get some sleep.
And do what Da tells you for once.”
    Ailean said nothing for a moment, irritation
crawling up his backbone with a