A Highland Christmas Read Online Free Page A

Cnothan area. There’s a bit o’ detective work for you. Ask your older brothers or sisters or your parents and if there’s anything at all, let
me know. Also, Mrs Gallagher has lost a cat. I’m going to pass round a photograph of the cat and I want you all to study it carefully and then search for this cat. There’ll be a
reward.’
    Schoolteacher Maisie then showed him out. ‘I see you don’t have the classroom decorated,’ said Hamish.
    ‘We were going to make some paper decorations but you know how it is. Some of the parents objected. They said they didn’t mind giving their children a present, but that they were
against what they call pagan celebrations. It’s hard on the children because they all watch television and they are all in love with the idea of a Christmas tree and lights and all those
things. Oh, well, it’s only at Christmas that they get stroppy. Other times, this must be the nicest place in the Highlands.’
    ‘It is that,’ said Hamish. ‘Maybe you’d like to have a bite of dinner with me one night?’
    She looked startled and then smiled. ‘Are you asking me out on a date?’
    Hamish thought gloomily about his unlucky love life and said quickly, ‘Chust a friendly meal.’
    ‘Then that would be nice.’
    ‘What about tomorrow evening? At the Italian restaurant? About eight?’
    ‘I’ll be there.’
    ‘Grand,’ said Hamish, giving her a dazzling smile.
    Mrs Wellington, the minister’s wife, was just arriving and heard the exchange. She waited until Hamish had left and then said in her booming voice, ‘I feel I should warn you against
that man, Miss Pease.’
    ‘Oh, why?’ asked the schoolteacher. ‘He’s not married, is he?’
    ‘No, more’s the pity. He is a philanderer.’
    ‘Dear me.’
    ‘He was engaged to Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, daughter of Colonel Halburton-Smythe who owns the Tommel Castle Hotel. He broke off the engagement and broke her heart.’
    Miss Pease had already heard quite a lot of Lochdubh gossip, and the gossips had it the other way round, that Priscilla had broken Hamish’s heart.
    ‘Oh, well,’ said Miss Pease, ‘he can’t do much to me over dinner.’
    ‘That’s what you think,’ said Mrs Wellington awfully. ‘Now about the Sunday school . . .’
    Hamish walked along the waterfront and met one of the fishermen, Archie Maclean. The locals said that Archie’s wife boiled all his clothes, and certainly they always
looked too tight for his small figure, as if every one had been shrunk and then starched and ironed. The creases in his trousers were like knife blades and his tweed jacket was stretched tightly
across his stooped shoulders.
    ‘Getting ready for Christmas, Archie?’ Hamish hailed him.
    ‘When wass there effer the Christmas in our house?’ grumbled Archie.
    ‘I didn’t think the wife was religious.’
    ‘No, but herself says she’s having none of those nasty Christmas trees shedding needles in her house, nor any of that nasty tinsel. You ken we’ve the only washhouse left in
Lochdubh?’
    Hamish nodded. The washhouse at the back of Archie’s cottage had been used in the old days before washing machines. It contained a huge copper basin set in limestone brick where the
clothes were once boiled on wash-day.
    ‘Well, the neighbours have been dropping by tae use it tae boil up their cloutie dumplings. But dae ye think I’ll get a piece. Naw!’
    Cloutie dumpling, that Scottish Christmas special, is a large pudding made of raisins, sultanas, dates, flour and suet, all boiled in a large cloth or pillowcase. Some families still kept silver
sixpences from the old days before decimal coinage to drop into the pudding. Large and brown and steaming and rich, it was placed on the table at Christmas and decorated with a sprig of holly. It
was so large it lasted for weeks, slices of it even being served fried with bacon for breakfast.
    ‘In fact,’ said Archie, ‘the only one what’s offered me a piece is Mrs