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He touched the brim of his cap to the men lingering just outside the door. Ignoring their questioning gazes, he plunged into the dimly lit tavern. Immediately, his senses were assaulted by the smell of sour ale and smoke curling up from the pipes several men smoked as they sat at a large table talking.
He crossed the stone floor to the bar and asked for ale. As he waited, he cast a furtive look on either side of him. Wooden tables held several groups of men. At the largest, what looked to be merchants, wearing proper waistcoats and jackets, were having a heated discussion.
Like Robbie, they wore half boots, except the odorous brown substance clinging to the heel of their boots suggested they’d stepped in something other than snow. Though he knew Kinloch to be a farmer, he could not imagine Kinloch doing that even for a disguise.
Thanking the proprietor, Robbie slid a coin over the counter and carried his ale to a small table adjacent to the large one, listening to the local farmers who drank ale while talking and chewing on the ends of their pipes.
The argument the men had been engaged in when he’d first entered the tavern must have ended, for now they speculated on the arrival of the next storm. When they’d exhausted that topic, they laughed about one of their fellow farmers who had managed to misplace some cows in the snow. All very boring and nothing of politics.
He was about to leave when the conversation turned to the clearances happening in the West.
A bald man with sideburns and ruddy cheeks addressed the others. “Word is Lord Stafford’s factor, a man named Sellar, has been torching crofters’ roofs to empty the glens for his lordship’s sheep.”
“Them English swells care naught fer the puir folks whose verra lives lay in that soil,” said an older man with gray hair and a wizened face.
“I hear Stafford doesna even visit his lands,” said the first man. “My uncle told me Sellar forced one auld man and his wife from their home in the cauld night where they died.”
“He’s tearin’ the heart outta the Highlands, all for Stafford’s sheep.”
Sinking into a dour mood, the men shouted to the proprietor for another round of ale.
On his other side, Robbie heard murmurs of disagreement. Finally, one man slid his chair back and stood to address those at the large table. “Ye have it all wrong. Stafford’s givin’ notice but some cottars ignore it. Sellar’s jus’ doin’ his job.”
Rising from his chair, a young farmer at the large table took offense. “Ye be Stafford’s man, too?”
“Can ye talk mair slow?” slurred the first man, pretending not to understand.
The young man, egged on by his dour companions, threw a fist.
A hullabaloo ensued as fists flew in all directions, ale splashed onto the stone floor and chairs were upturned. Men from both sides strained to get at each other.
The proprietor yelled. “Och! Ye fools!” and waded into the fray. “See what comes of yer bleetin’?”
Robbie had no desire to become a part of their fight. Not that he didn’t enjoy a stimulating round of fisticuffs now and then, but he could not risk his identity or his mission being compromised.
Pressing himself against the nearest wall, he inched his way to the door. Avoiding tankards sailing through the air and stepping over groaning bodies, he at last gained the exit.
He opened the door to the street and the men standing outside, hearing the noise, rushed past him to join the fight.
Robbie pulled his scarf up around his neck against the brisk wind. He found it surprising that men so easily given to violence had never mentioned the events in Manchester or Kinloch’s speech in Dundee. He would have thought such events would have united them and been the subject of great debate.
He headed toward the waterfront, hoping to hear of ships that might be sailing in the next few weeks. On the street called Horner’s Wynd, he entered The Lorne Tavern.
Relieved to see a smattering of men dressed as sailors and a few fishermen in the blue knitted shirts they favored, he claimed the one free stool at the wooden bar. As he waited for the proprietor, he stared at the painting of a ship hanging on the wall facing him.
A fully rigged black-hulled schooner. He could just make out the name Panmure on the starboard bow.
“Ye ken somethin’ of ships, do ye?” the proprietor asked, coming to take his order. The burly man’s curly gray hair and muscular arms reminded Robbie of a ship’s carpenter he once knew.
“Aye, a wee bit,” Robbie replied, pulling off his cap. “Sailed a few times.”
“What ye efter?”
Hoping the inquiry spoke to the drink Robbie wanted, he grunted. “Ale.”
The burly man nodded. “Ye’re a stranger in toun. Visitin’?”
“Aye, fer Hogmanay. I’ve a mate up at Stephen’s shipyard.” He spoke truth but the proprietor did not need to know his “mate” was the shipyard’s owner.
