is the crest, Morag? What is the way, then, you would describe, in the right words, what is there on that badge?”
She knows it off by heart.
“A passion nail piercing a human heart, proper.”
Christie’s fist comes down on the table.
“Right! An ancient family, the North Logans, by the Almighty God.”
Then the spirits start to get gloomy in him.
“Och, what the hell does it matter? It’s here we live, not there, and the glory has passed away, and likely never was in the first place.”
“Christie, tell me about Piper Gunn.”
Christie sighs, and pours another drink. He sits there, thinking. Soon he will begin. Morag knows what it says in the book under the name Gunn. It isn’t fair, but it must be true because it is right there in the book.
The chieftainship of Clan Gunn is undetermined at the present time, and no arms have been matriculated.
When she first looked it up, she showed it to Christie, and he read it and then he laughed and asked her if she had not been told the tales about the most famous Gunn of all, and so he told her. He tells them to her sometimes when the spirit moves him.
Now he rocks back on the straight chair, for he is sitting at the table with the bottle beside him.
“All right, then, listen and I will tell you the first tale of your ancestor.”
CHRISTIE’S FIRST TALE OF PIPER GUNN
It was in the old days, a long time ago, after the clans was broken and scattered at the battle on the moors, and the dead men thrown into the long graves there, and no heather ever grew on those places, never again, for it was dark places they had become and places of mourning. Then, in those days, a darkness fell over all the lands and the crofts of Sutherland. The Bitch-Duchess was living there then, and it was she who cast a darkness over the land, and sowed the darkness and reaped gold, for her heart was dark as the feathers of a raven and her heart was cold as the gold coins, and she loved no creature alive but only the gold. And her tacksmen rode through the countryside, setting fire to the crofts and turning out the people from their homes which they had lived in since the beginning of all time. And it was old men and old women with thin shanks and men in their prime and women with the child inside them and a great scattering of small children like, and all of them was driven away from the lands of their fathers and onto the wild rocks of the shore, then, to fish if they could and pry the shellfish off of the rocks there, for food.
Well, now, the Bitch-Duchess walked her castle, there, walked and walked, and you would think God in His mercy would keep the sleep forever from her eyelids, but she slept sound enough when she had a mind to. She was not the one to feel shame or remorse over the people scrabbling on the rocks there like animals and like the crabs who crawl among the rocks in that place. All the lands of Sutherland will be raising the sheep , says the she-devil, for they’ll pay better than folk.
Among all of them people there on the rocks, see, was a piper, and he was from the Clan Gunn, and it was many of the Gunns who lost their hearths and homes and lived wild on the stormy rocks there. And Piper Gunn, he was a great tallman, a man with the voice of drums and the heart of a child and the gall of a thousand and the strength of conviction. And when he played the pipes on the shore, there, it was the pibrochs he played, out of mourning for the people lost and the people gone and them with no place for to lay their heads except the rocks of the shore. When Piper Gunn played, the very seagulls echoed the chants of mourning, and the people wept. And Piper Gunn, he played there on the shore, all the pibrochs he knew, “Flowers of the Forest” and all them. And it would wrench the heart of any person whose heart was not dead as stone, to hear him.
Then Piper Gunn spoke to the people. Dolts and draggards and daft loons and gutless as gutted herring you are , he calls out in his
She knows it off by heart.
“A passion nail piercing a human heart, proper.”
Christie’s fist comes down on the table.
“Right! An ancient family, the North Logans, by the Almighty God.”
Then the spirits start to get gloomy in him.
“Och, what the hell does it matter? It’s here we live, not there, and the glory has passed away, and likely never was in the first place.”
“Christie, tell me about Piper Gunn.”
Christie sighs, and pours another drink. He sits there, thinking. Soon he will begin. Morag knows what it says in the book under the name Gunn. It isn’t fair, but it must be true because it is right there in the book.
The chieftainship of Clan Gunn is undetermined at the present time, and no arms have been matriculated.
When she first looked it up, she showed it to Christie, and he read it and then he laughed and asked her if she had not been told the tales about the most famous Gunn of all, and so he told her. He tells them to her sometimes when the spirit moves him.
Now he rocks back on the straight chair, for he is sitting at the table with the bottle beside him.
“All right, then, listen and I will tell you the first tale of your ancestor.”
CHRISTIE’S FIRST TALE OF PIPER GUNN
It was in the old days, a long time ago, after the clans was broken and scattered at the battle on the moors, and the dead men thrown into the long graves there, and no heather ever grew on those places, never again, for it was dark places they had become and places of mourning. Then, in those days, a darkness fell over all the lands and the crofts of Sutherland. The Bitch-Duchess was living there then, and it was she who cast a darkness over the land, and sowed the darkness and reaped gold, for her heart was dark as the feathers of a raven and her heart was cold as the gold coins, and she loved no creature alive but only the gold. And her tacksmen rode through the countryside, setting fire to the crofts and turning out the people from their homes which they had lived in since the beginning of all time. And it was old men and old women with thin shanks and men in their prime and women with the child inside them and a great scattering of small children like, and all of them was driven away from the lands of their fathers and onto the wild rocks of the shore, then, to fish if they could and pry the shellfish off of the rocks there, for food.
Well, now, the Bitch-Duchess walked her castle, there, walked and walked, and you would think God in His mercy would keep the sleep forever from her eyelids, but she slept sound enough when she had a mind to. She was not the one to feel shame or remorse over the people scrabbling on the rocks there like animals and like the crabs who crawl among the rocks in that place. All the lands of Sutherland will be raising the sheep , says the she-devil, for they’ll pay better than folk.
Among all of them people there on the rocks, see, was a piper, and he was from the Clan Gunn, and it was many of the Gunns who lost their hearths and homes and lived wild on the stormy rocks there. And Piper Gunn, he was a great tallman, a man with the voice of drums and the heart of a child and the gall of a thousand and the strength of conviction. And when he played the pipes on the shore, there, it was the pibrochs he played, out of mourning for the people lost and the people gone and them with no place for to lay their heads except the rocks of the shore. When Piper Gunn played, the very seagulls echoed the chants of mourning, and the people wept. And Piper Gunn, he played there on the shore, all the pibrochs he knew, “Flowers of the Forest” and all them. And it would wrench the heart of any person whose heart was not dead as stone, to hear him.
Then Piper Gunn spoke to the people. Dolts and draggards and daft loons and gutless as gutted herring you are , he calls out in his
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