Читать книгу The Ghost Tree - Barbara Erskine - Страница 22

Thomas

We had always been a God-fearing family. Serious and thoughtful supporters of the Reformation, as the sennachie told us boys, and before that true followers of the old church. Back into the mists of time, as he would say, using his favourite phrase for when his memories no longer served him, although he did mention the Picts and before them the North Britons as others who had been equally devoted to their gods. We were descended from kings, he told us, and when the line of descent strayed away from the throne we supported and served our monarchs with loyalty, if not always skill.

Probity and prayer drove my forefathers into the Presbyterian camp during the Civil Wars of the seventeenth century and through that loyalty they lost their lands and went into exile, first in Holland and then over the sea to the Americas. When they returned to Scotland and the restored Stuart line was replaced, their opinions were split; my mother’s brother and my father’s cousin fought for Prince Charlie and the lands were forfeit again. My other uncle and my cousin fought against the man they called the Pretender. Although all was now officially forgiven and the various branches of the family, through fines and oaths of allegiance, were once more in favour, in their hearts I suspect more families than ours retained their loyalty to the Stuart cause.

My father was a freemason; indeed, had been grandmaster of the lodge before I was born, and my parents were devout followers of the Calvinist faith; my brothers and I were brought up to go to the kirk with scrubbed necks and hands, our well-thumbed Bibles in our hands. My sisters were even more intense in their devotion.

And me? Did I believe? Oh yes, I believed but I am not sure it was in the same things as my family. I paid careful attention to what was required, but there was a whole universe beyond the strictures of the prayer book which I could see and sense with my own faculties. The sennachie knew; my brothers knew and teased me for it. Anne and Isabella were shocked and horrified. I did not learn in time to keep quiet about what to me was obvious. I was to regret that later in my life, but I never regretted the gift of second sight that I had been given. Ever.