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"Because 'tis a foul lie that's why!" Douglas surged to his feet, his face twisting with fury. "And if 'twas sense ye had inyer head instead of useless book-learning, ye'd be seeing the truth of that!"
"But a pardon, Douglas," Geordie MacColme, Hugh's uncle, intervened. "Let your mind rest on that for a wee bit, andthink on what it could mean to the clan. Ye've seen what's happening about us, how the English seize upon the smallestexcuse to take what is ours. If Hugh swears this oath and enlists, it will mean clemency for us all."
Douglas whirled to glare at his brother. "Clemency!" he roared, his voice echoing off the stone walls. "Where's yer pride,mon? Yer honor? Is it a burraidh ye are, to be believing in the lies of the English? Did Culloden nae teach youanything?"
A bitter quarrel erupted between the two brothers, with the chieftains soon joining in to offer opinions and criticisms.Hugh watched it all with increasing bitterness. Did his father and the others truly think he wanted to leave? he wonderedangrily Were they so daft as not to know that leaving Scotland and those he loved would tear the heart from him? Anddid they think there was any other choice? As he listened his iron control slipped, and his temper ran free.
"Honor!" he sneered, breaking into his father's tirade. "Pride! Will honor fill the stomachs of the babes when they wailfrom the hunger? Will pride keep out the snow and the cold when the winter comes and we dinna have roofs over ourpeople's heads? You know the answer to that as well as I: It will not."
A stunned silence filled the hall as the men assembled there exchanged uneasy looks. "'Tis nae that we dinna seethetruth of yer words," James Callamby, one of his father's oldest friends, said at last, his expression kind as he studiedHugh. "And we mark that ye do this for us. But to accept a MacColme wearing the uniform of the enemy..." He shookhis grizzled head. " 'Tis a hard thing ye ask of us, lad."
"Tis a disgrace is what it is," his father interjected before Hugh could respond. "A blow to all who have died under theheel of the usurper! Your own mother amongst them," he added, shooting Hugh a glowering look.
The mention of his mother, dead now these last three years, was a stinging lash upon Hugh's soul. He had adored hissweet-tempered mother and grieved for her still, but he knew she would have understood what he was doing. Wouldhave understood and supported him against his father, just as she had when he had begged to be sent to university inEdinburgh. She had stood against his father and the entire clan to see he got the education he craved, and he tookcomfort in the thought that she would have stood with him now.
"Hugh," Geordie said, regarding him solemnly, "is it set you are to do this thing? Do you truly mean to become one ofthe English?"
"Nay, Uncle," Hugh said, relieved he could reassure the others on this point. "I'll never be English. I'll don the uniform;I'll pull my cap and where I'm told, and do as I am bid; but I'll always be a Highlander. I'll always be a MacColme. Neverdoubt that."
There was more heated discussion amongst the chieftains and then James Callamby gave him a worried look. "And if 'tisyer own people yer new masters tell ye to kill, what then, Hugh MacColme? Will ye still do as ye are bid?"
This was something Hugh had already considered, accepting that he would die at the end of a rope before ever raising aweapon against his own. He pulled out his dirk and held it high above his head. "If such a time comes," he said, turningslowly around so that all could see his face as he spoke, "if ever I turn against a man of my clan, a man of my blood, Ioffer my life in forfeit. I charge those here to plunge this dirk in my back if ever I betray Scotland." He turned andhurled the knife into the table where his father sat, the handle quivering as the blade buried itself in the thick wood.
"I love you," he said in the old language, his gaze meeting that of his father. "But I will do what I must to protect theclan. All I ask in return is that you do nothing that will endanger the pardon I have won."
His father's face worked oddly for several seconds, and for a moment Hugh feared to see him weep. "Ye will do this,then?" he asked, his voice hoarse with emotion. "Ye will take the king's shilling and leave all who love ye?"
Hugh blinked back his own tears. "I will."
His father dropped his head. "Then so be it," he said wearily, raising his chin and gazing about the room. "My son isdead," he intoned, ignoring the shocked gasps and cries of dismay. "From this day hence we'll speak his name nae mair."
Hugh stood in painful isolation, accepting his father's judgment before turning away; his head held proudly as he walkedaway.
