“Feumaidh am fear sin a bhith air a thumadh ann an tobar Maelrubha.[1]”
There is work to be done but these mornings Tearlach simply stares into the ashes.
Perched on the low stool beneath the pall of peat smoke, he sits, dirk in hand, conversing with the fallen. Or worse.
The scunner of it is he is one of the few able-bodied men in the parish. But what use is an able body without an able mind? He might as well be with beneath some fairy mound feasting. Perhaps he is?
Mairi aches from the ploughing. Five of them from the baile were at the task since sunrise: three women, two girls, the boy and old Dòmhnall Pol Beag. Now the eight of them must break the sod, sow the oats, carry the seaware from the beach. Hard darg is bred in their bones but breaking turf with the cas chriombh is work for men. Old Dòmhnall took the brunt of it until he could not go on for weeping. Aonghas, Peigi’s boy, is too wee and weak to force the blade into the turf. Mairi, Peigi and Caistriona Pol Beag took turns but the progress was slow and she fears they will plant less than last year, which was less than the year before.
And Tearlach stares into the fire beneath the unkempt thatch of the black-house not even fit to mind the baby.
“Dè tha thu a’ coimhead air?[2]” she asks him.
But there is never a reply. Perhaps he doesn’t know.
His brother, Aonghas, died at Lagganmore and his brother Dòmhnall Ban saw no virtue in following Alasdair McColla to Ireland.
Even then Tearlach was changed though he didn’t seem so distracted.. He seemed morose and edgy, prone to nightmares and absences but he still set to needful work around the baille, cutting peats
Dòmhnall Ban was away droving cattle when the Campbells and Covenanters reived from their kists in the following year. Any man the Campbell’s came across was butchered. Any woman or girl was raped. Their livestock was driven off or slaughtered. They watched from high above as their homes and goods were torched by Argyll’s men.
“Teàrlach! An dachaigh againn! Ar bathar![3]”, she said.
“Smaoinich gu bheil thu fortanach nach eil thu a-staigh, a Mhàiri,[4]” he said.
The men of the baile would not fight. They said they could not fight. The smoke from burning homes rose in filthy streaks on both sides of Loch Scridian. The embers glowed in the bitter Autumn night.
She had heard the rumour bragged in whispers.
When McColla’s men smashed the Campbells at Lagganmore, they rounded up the wounded and surrendered along with all of the Campbells in the nearby bailtean and locked them in the kirk at Cillechriost. Dòmhnall Ban, Tearlach and the rest of McColla’s men set light to the thatch and watched and listened. Smoke and flames engulfed the folk inside. Those who emerged were slaughtered, still roasting, at the door.
It is a story repeated from Dunnotar to Trumpan to Lagganmore. Better to flee into the heather than go meekly to the kirk.
When all of Muile had been plundered and burned, Campbell’s and their Scots allies returned to the mainland. The thick basalt walls of their cotts were still standing when they finally ventured down from the hill but their rooftrees were burned amd whatever good the caterans could not carry were smashed and burned.. The bloated carcasses of their cattle rotted in the inby fields.
As Tearlach returned to the baile, sword in hand, target trembling on his arm, he shouted out.
“Rud uabhasach, a Dhòmhnaill, nach eil?[5]
Dòmhnall Pol Beag nodded. “Tha!”
But Tearlach wasn’t looking in Dòmhnall’s direction.
“Nach eil?” he said again. “A Dhomhnal?”
Then he set out across the heather towards the head of the loch.
Dòmhnall Ban returned from Morven and together the brothers began to rebuild. With the other men of the baile, they found new bog-wood from the shough to replace their burned roof-trees, replaced the thatch and wattle as the winter came. There was no crop left to harvest. They eked out the winter and spring on molluscs and cod, funghi and rowan berries, burdock, hips and haws and whatever charity could afford. Every baile in the Ros Mhuile had been pillaged and burned. Many of their boats had been wrecked.
Tearlach was no taïsher – or showed no sign of it until that time – but, after that, he began to brood indoors amidst the undertones of charred wood that still lurk beneath the peat-smoke fug. Often, when his brother was not there, he peered through the smoke into a far corner, nodding. That year, Tearlach spoke less and less. Their boy, Aonghas, grew without a brother or a sister. She missed him as a dancing partner. When she dragged him out to cielidhs, he was poor company.
One night, returning home, she found him sitting at their door conversing with the empty air. He had left the cielidh in Scobul early and walked back alone.
“Teàrlach? A bheil thu ceart gu leòr? Dè tha ceàrr ort?”[6]
“Nach fhaca tu iad?” he said. “Dh’iarr iad orm mo thuras a ghabhail.”
“Faic cò?”
“Bha Dòmhnall trom. Cha b’ urrainn domh a chudthrom a ghiulan gus an ath chàrn.”
Dòmhnall Ban laughed. “Trom an robh mi? Cò ris a tha thu ag èigheach trom, a chit reamhar? An robh thu aig an uisge-beatha ùr?”[7]
When news came that the English had beheaded the King he fought for, Tearlach would only nod. “Och, an ceann a bh’ ann?”[8]
When news came that the clans were rising in support of the new king, Tearlach disappeared.
When the call came to join the Mac Gille Eathain on the mainland, he was still missing but Dòmhnall Ban heeded his cheiftan’s summons.
Of the seven hundred muileanaich followed Eachann Mac Gille Eathain to Inverkeithing, only thirty-five men returned. Dòmhnall Ban was not among them.
It was then that the silence fell on Tearlach like a spell. His dirk always drawn, he never spoke to Dòmhnall’s tamhasg – or anyone else – again.
[1] That one needs dipped in Maelrubha’s well.
[2] What are you staring at?”
[3] “Charles! Our home! Our goods!”
[4] “Consider yourself lucky you’re not inside, Mary,”
[5] A terrible thing, Donald, is it not?
[6] “Charles? Are you OK? What’s wrong with you?”
“Did you not see them? They asked me to take my turn.”
“See who?”
“Donald was heavy. I could not bear the weight of him till the next cairn.”
[7] Heavy was I? Who are you calling heavy, you fat cunt?
Have you been at the new whisky?
[8] Alas, the head was it?
© John Bolland 2026
[1] What are you staring at?”
[2] “Charles! Our home! Our goods!”
[3] “Consider yourself lucky you’re not inside, Mary,”
[4] A terrible thing, Donald, is it not?
[5] “Charles? Are you OK? What’s wrong with you?”
“Did you not see them? They asked me to take my turn.”
“See who?”
“Donald was heavy. I could not bear the weight of him till the next cairn.”
[6] Heavy was I? Who are you calling heavy, you fat cunt?
Have you been at the new whisky?
[7] Alas, the head was it?