Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

After drinking his fill, it was getting late. All their drunken chatter wasn’t going to make the poor any richer. Like many a dark night before, he’d drunk too much whisky and stumbled homewards towards his cottage. Today was one of those nights like other nights when Ruaridh was aimlessly walking home; it’s as if the spirit of whisky was dancing with him. Only, that whisky is a lousy dancing partner. 

He had to pass MacKay’s cottage before he reached his own. While plodding along, he remembered what Angus had said; the MacKays were away visiting poor old Moire MacQuarrie, who didn’t have long left in this world. 

It was then that the whisky played a trick on him as a drunken, devilish thought crept into his mind.

“The little fairie Morag must be sleeping,” he thought to himself. “It won’t do her any harm if I carefully open the door. Maybe I’ll just have one look at her sweet angelic face before I go to my bed.” He said to himself.  

When he reached her cottage, he carefully opened the door, trying not to make a sound. Morag was sleeping all alone in the cottage. The young girl was all by herself. “No time is more perfect than tonight,” he thought. 

Five years have passed. The fairy-child he had once met by the burn is no longer a sweet rosebud, the sweet vision that had entranced him all those years ago—no. Now, she is like a red rose in full bloom, a beautiful young woman. 

“There is no harm in gazing at her pretty face while she sleeps,” he thought to himself once again.

So, he entered the cottage. It was too dark to see anything, but he always had a box of friction matches in his pocket to light his pipe. He struck a match. He could faintly see Morag sleeping in the corner of the room on a narrow bed. Next to the bed was a small wooden table with a candle on it, which he proceeded to light. 

Once the candle flickered to life, he saw the sweet face of the angelic fairy of his dreams. The fairy he had seen for the first time by the burn many years ago. It felt like it was just yesterday when they had first met, but it also felt like forever. “Well, yes, five years is really like forever,” he thought to himself. But now Morag was right before him.  

He sat on the edge of her bed, gazing at her virgin-like beauty. He thought to himself, “I can just steal a light kiss from her lips so she doesn’t wake up.” Of course, these were the thoughts of a drunken man, as he was reeking of whisky and would soon wake her. 

He leant over her slim body to steal a kiss—like the prince kissing the Sleeping Beauty, the ‘Little Briar Rose.’ But he was no prince, and she was no princess. She was but a poor, defenceless illegitimate child, a victim in more ways than one. When the ‘Little Briar Rose’ woke, unlike the Sleeping Beauty, she did not see a ‘prince’. What she saw was something that was a cross between a toad and a beast. Ruaridh’s face was now distorted and convulsing due to the whisky and his uncontrollable desire. With frightened eyes, she was about to scream in shock and fear. Ruaridh covered her mouth with his huge, rough hand.

It was at this point that desire took control of him. She wasn’t an angel he wanted to gaze at in rapture; she was a young, beautiful woman who had caused him many sleepless nights. His excitement rose, and his heart was racing because he knew the moment he had been waiting for had arrived. He has been burning to possess Morag all these years.  

She was unable to scream but just looked with frightened eyes at this strong man overpowering her, like a doe caught in the jaws of a lion. Like a lion, Ruaridh mistook the frightened look of his ‘doe’ for desire—as if deer have only one fatalistic wish in life, to be the meal of a hungry lion.   

“Dae nae worry ah wull be careful wi’ ye,” he uttered as he kissed her forehead, as if he was her protective father. 

She tried to resist him; but as soon as she tried to push him away with her two hands, Ruaridh caught them in a swift movement. She tried to kick him and wiggle free, but his strong and heavy body, which was now on top of her, overpowered her small frame. She fought as long as she could until her body gave way, and her tears started falling—tears were the only thing about Morag’s body that Ruaridh was not now in control of.  

When Ruaridh was ‘satisfied’, he said, “Dae nae worry. It’s oor secret – na yin wull ken,” he blurted out, now that he was ‘sober’, and his passion no longer had a hold on him. 

He stood up and fixed his clothes. 

She watched Ruaridh’s back disappear into the darkness out of the doorway. 

It ended just like that. Many people had shamed her in public, as she was a ‘bastard child’ but she had never really understood it—it was as if it were disconnected from her, but now she felt bodily shame for the first time—so she really understood what ‘shame’ meant. 

The physical molestation of her was the least of her pains. It was Ruaridh’s mental violation of her that she couldn’t stand. Despised by the people of the island, she had placed her hopes and dreams in him. He would rescue her from her miserable and shameful existence, a strong Viking with respect for equal relations and women. But he turned out much worse than all her enemies—because he insulted the very core of her existence.

Morag wasn’t a religious girl, but she had hoped that Ruaridh was someone who could show her that there was some good in this life. But the hope of her girlish dreams had invaded her home and treated her like a dirty rag he wiped himself with, like she was some kind of rag doll. She was just a ‘rag doll’ which people always laughed at. These were all the thoughts running through her head. She wished that Ruaridh had taken his strong hands and squeezed the life out of her, as she had no desire to carry on living; she felt betrayed. 

Morag lay on her bed still shaking. Abused by a man who had come uninvited to her cottage and molested her. 

She stared blankly at the ceiling, and could see the stars through the small skylight window.

“They had witnessed the crime this man had committed, the man she once thought could be her saviour had broken and ruined her. The stars had seen it all, but they just carried on twinkling  as before. Perhaps for them it was just an insignificant act of abuse,” she thought to herself, hoping in some way to lessen her pain. 

Her body is numb with pain and she feels sick to her stomach recalling what has just happened.

“Do you hate me this badly?” She whispered into thin air, as if the same Creator to whom she prayed had just watched like a bystander, not caring, and He allowed the man to assault her despite her cries for mercy. In pain, she wondered what she possibly could have done wrong to experience the violation and pain. Why would Heaven let him abuse her in this way? She thought.

The physical and emotional pain she has felt before for being a bastard child is nothing compared to the betrayal she’s feeling right now. It feels like fate and heaven have joined forces to betray her. “But who is she to question the unknown when she’s merely nothing but a shameful girl?” she thought to herself. 

Once again, she cried, not because she’s mourning for what she has lost but for what Ruaridh has torn from her. This time, she’s not just crying for herself but for her mother, Mary. Now she knows why it’s very hard for her mother to answer her questions about why she has no father or how she was conceived; her mother can recall unwanted memories that come with her father’s name.

Now she knows why it was pain that registered on her mother’s face and not longingness. Because how can you feel no anger towards the man who destroyed your life? Now she knows why, because she, like her mother, has become a victim of the same crime. Her family has now been shamed for two generations. 

She cried until her eyes became swollen and red. She finally cried herself to sleep.