Leadem, Christopher / 2008-06-22 00:00:00

EBOOK, HIGHLAND BALLAD ***




HIGHLAND BALLAD
Approximately 65,000 Words
(Historical Fiction)
Copyright 1995 by Christopher Leadem,
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0-88100-086-8
Aragorn Books
www.aragornbooks.com





HIGHLAND BALLAD
For Natasha
Part One:
A Lingering Flame

One
The red sun rose slowly, achingly across the high Scottish moor,
touching with melancholy gold the patching hoar frost and purple
heath. For this was a land of pain, and stark beauty, and restless
dream. Here the spirits of the dead walked by night through grim
castles of shadow and dust, their glory long past. Here the spirits of
the living grieved by day for a proud and chivalrous time forever
lost.
For now the English ruled the land. The battle of Culloden was three
years lost and Bonnie Prince Charles, the drunken fool in whom they
had placed such hope, was living in exile in France. For what then had
the pride of Highland manhood shed their blood, leaving behind them
the heart-broken wives, aging fathers, and uncomprehending child
sisters? Was it to see the Lord Purceville establish his thieving
court at the ancestral home of the MacPhersons? Was it to pay hard
tribute in grain and goods which could not be spared, to an Empire
already bloated and corrupt?
None felt the pangs of lost promise more deeply than young Mary Scott,
aged sixteen years, with a future as uncertain as the fretting October
wind.
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