The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [260]
“So,” Mrs. Bug said, matter-of-factly, “it may be as ye’ll find some lass who’s a use for it. Shame to let it go to waste, aye?”
35
HOGMANAY
THE YEAR ENDED clear and cold, with a small, brilliant moon that rose high in the violet-black vault of the sky, and flooded the coves and trails of the mountainside with light. A good thing, as people came from all over the Ridge—and some, even farther—to keep Hogmanay at “the Big House.”
The men had cleared the new barn and raked the floor clean for the dancing. Jigs and reels and strathspeys—and a number of other dances for which I didn’t know the names, but they looked like fun—were executed under the light of bear-oil lanterns, accompanied by the music of Evan Lindsay’s scratchy fiddle and the squeal of his brother Murdo’s wooden flute, punctuated by the heartbeat thump of Kenny’s bodhran.
Thurlo Guthrie’s ancient father had brought his pipes, too—a set of small uilleann pipes that looked nearly as decrepit as did Mr. Guthrie, but produced a sweet drone. The melody of his chanter sometimes agreed with the Lindsays’ notion of a particular tune, and sometimes didn’t, but the overall effect was cheerful, and sufficient whisky and beer had been taken by this point in the festivities that no one minded in the least.
After an hour or two of the dancing, I privately decided that I understood why the word “reel” had come to indicate drunkenness; even performed without preliminary lubrication, the dance was enough to make one dizzy. Done under the influence of whisky, it made all the blood in my head whirl round like the water in a washing machine. I staggered off at the end of one such dance, leaned against one of the barn’s uprights, and closed one eye, in hopes of stopping the spinning sensation.
A nudge on my blind side caused me to open that eye, revealing Jamie, holding two brimming cups of something. Hot and thirsty as I was, I didn’t mind what it was, so long as it was wet. Fortunately it was cider, and I gulped it.
“Drink it like that, and ye’ll founder, Sassenach,” he said, disposing of his own cider in precisely similar fashion. He was flushed and sweating from the dancing, but his eyes sparkled as he grinned at me.
“Piffle,” I said. With a bit of cider as ballast, the room had quit spinning, and I felt cheerful, if hot. “How many people are in here, do you think?”
“Sixty-eight, last time I counted.” He leaned back beside me, viewing the milling throng with an expression of deep content. “They come in and out, though, so I canna be quite sure. And I didna count the weans,” he added, moving slightly to avoid collision as a trio of small boys caromed through the crowd and shot past us, giggling.
Heaps of fresh hay were stacked in the shadows at the sides of the barn; the small bodies of children too wee to stay awake were draped and curled among them like so many barn kittens. The flicker of lantern light caught a gleam of silky red-gold; Jemmy was sound asleep in his blanket, happily lulled by the racket. I saw Bree come out of the dancing and lay her hand briefly on him to check, then turn back. Roger put out a hand to her, dark and smiling, and she took it, laughing as they whirled back into the stamping mass.
People did come in and out—particularly small groups of young people, and courting couples. It was freezing and frost-crisp outside, but the cold made cuddling with a warm body that much more appealing. One of the older MacLeod boys passed near us, his arm round a much younger girl—one of old Mr. Guthrie’s granddaughters, I thought; he had three of them, all much alike to look at—and Jamie said something genial to him in Gaelic that made his ears go red. The girl was already pink with dancing, but went crimson in the face.
“What did you say to them?”
“It doesna bear translation,” he said, putting a hand in the small of my back. He was pulsing with heat and whisky, alight with a flame of joy; looking at him was enough to kindle my own heart. He saw that, and smiled down at me, the heat of his hand burning