Introduced by John Burns. Caught up in the strife between smugglers on the Solway Coast and the gypsies of Galloway, young Patrick Heron is flung into a society of social outcasts, outlaws and downright murderers. But this world of moonlit confusion and bloody horror offers a kind of freedom, too, as Patrick travels far beyond the conventions of his day to enter a world made anew by fear and desolation and courage and energy. Crockett’s raciest narrative is full of the wild Galloway landscape which he knew so well and loved so much, informed at every turn of the plot by his delight in local history and old folk tales of the region. Introduced by John Burns. Caught up in the strife between smugglers on the Solway Coast and the gypsies of Galloway, young Patrick Heron is flung into a society of social outcasts, outlaws and downright murderers. But this world of moonlit confusion and bloody horror offers a kind of freedom, too, as Patrick travels far beyond the conventions of his day to enter a world made anew by fear and desolation and courage and energy. Crockett’s raciest narrative is full of the wild Galloway landscape which he knew so well and loved so much, informed at every turn of the plot by his delight in local history and old folk tales of the region.
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Samuel R. Crockett. The Raiders: Being Some Passages In The Life Of John Faa, Lord And Earl Of Little Egypt
THE RAIDERS
Contents
Introduction
Foreword
Moonlight and May Mischief
John Heron of Isle Rathan
Dawn on Rathan Sands
The Cave of Adullam
Auld Wives’ Clavers
The Still Hunter
The Red Cock Crows at Craigdarroch
Night on the Moor
In Ramsay Bay
Smuggler and King’s Man
The Great Cave of Isle Rathan
Morning in the Cave
The Defence of the Cave
The Hill Gypsies
The Dry Cave
The Camp of Silver Sand
Council of War
To Introduce Mistress Crummie
On the Track of the Raiders
The Great Fight at the Bridge-Head
Sammle Tamson Fetches a Rake of Water
I Get the Right Side of Eppie Tamson
The Forwandered Bairn
A Meeting with Billy Marshall
The Dungeon o’ Buchan
The Wolf’s Slock
In Which by the Blessing of Providence I Lie Bravely
The Black Sea-Chest
The Murder Hole
A Wooing Not Long A-Doing
May Mischief Proves Her Mettle
I Salute the Lady Grizel
Jen Geddes’ Sampler Bag
Sweet Cake and Conserves
Silver Sand’s White Magic
The Barring of the Door
The Silver Whistle Blows
The Second Crowing of the Red Cock
The Earl’s Great Chair
The Breaking of the Barrier
A Race for Life upon the Ice
The Fastness of Utmost Enoch
The Aughty on the Star Hill
The Sixteen Drifty Days
Alien and Outlaw
The Brownie
The Last of the Outlaws
The Earl’s Great Chair Once More
Glossary
Copyright
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THE RAIDERS
Samuel Rutherford Crockett was born in 1859, on the family farm in Kirkcudbrightshire, where his unmarried mother worked as a dairymaid. He was largely brought up by his grandparents who were devout Cameronians in the Convenanting tradition and the boy had a happy childhood in the Galloway countryside he came to love and to write about in his later fiction. Educated in Castle Douglas, Crockett gained a bursary to Edinburgh University in 1876 where he studied for an Arts degree, supplementing his small income by tutoring and by writing articles, stories and poetry for various periodicals. He spent the summer of 1878 in London hoping to find work as a journalist but returned to Edinburgh and graduated in the following year. Shortly after this he was engaged as a tutor and companion to two young men and the trio travelled together on a tour of Europe. Still keen on writing, but now seekng some more permanent position, Crockett came back to Edinburgh and attended science classes at the University there. Then, in 1881, he enrolled as a divinity student at New College. Four years later, he graduated as a Free Kirk minister and in 1886 he took up his first post at a kirk in Penicuik. Tall, bearded, energetic and committed to social, cultural and educational activities of all sorts, Crockett made quite an impression in his parish. During his travelling years he had met Ruth Mary Milner, the daughter of a Lancashire mill owner, and the couple were married in 1887. They were to have two sons and three daughters in the years to come.
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As soon as Mrs Allison got her breath she began, ‘Noo, Maister Paitrick Heron, could ye tell me by what richt ye keep my laddies here, that should be serving in their father’s shop and rinnin’ their mither’s messages – you that caa’s yersel’ a laird? A bonny laird, quo’ he, to wile awa’ decent folk’s bairns frae their ain door cheek to his ramshackle hoose, an’ keep them there – a wheen puir bits o’ boys to cut his firewood, and leeve in this fearsome-like hole.’
‘Aye,’ cried the shriller voice of Mistress MacWhirter, ‘and I’ll e’en pit yin to that. It was him an’ nae ither that pat my Jerry, that was aye a guid lad, past the grocering.’
