Snow Bound

By Donna and Abs

Besides Mary and Olivier, there was someone else wandering through the snow. He was to the north though, not too far from the loch. Dressed in a relatively modern British policeman's uniform, Hamish MacBeth struggled to get through the drifts.

Why he was here, he did not know.  And in a way, he did not even know he was lost!  He thought he had somehow gotten lost in a storm near his own home of Lochdubh!

Suddenly he paused. "Wee Jock? Is that you?"  He heard an excited little yip coming from underneath a large evergreen tree.

Somehow he and his small West Highland terrier - or "Westie" - had gotten separated.  Hamish and Wee Jock were always together. He even brought the dog on calls with him!  In the blizzard, the white dog was quite hard to see.

He found the dog hiding under the boughs of the evergreen, shivering from the cold. "Ach, Jock, there ye are!" Hamish said, squatting down to scoop up the dog into his arms. Opening up his jacket, he stuffed him inside. There was no way the little animal could walk through the drifts!

Jock snuggled down, safe in familiar surroundings.  But the surroundings were not familiar to Hamish!  Even in the snow, he was starting to get the feeling that things were not exactly as they had been in Lochdubh!  Where was he?  And would he ever find warmth and shelter again?

He made his way up a small knoll. Perhaps from there he could see something familiar. Once there, he looked around, shading his eyes from the reflection from the sun on the sparkling snow. In one direction, he thought he could see what looked like a castle! But in the other, near a good-sized loch, there was a small village with smoke plumes drifting up into the clear blue sky.

He went toward the village.  The castle was easily seen, but not so easily reached!  And he was still hoping to be in his familiar village by the loch, no matter what his eyes were telling him!

Wee Jock stuck his nose out from his warm hiding place and made what seemed to be an approving bark at Hamish's choice. The policeman laughed and scratched the small animal’s ears. "Is that where we should go, lad?"

With another approving bark to encourage him, he made his way to Glenerin.  

As he neared the village, Hamish spotted a black robed priest stepping out of a small church. Wee Jock barked again, and Father Rudden paused, looking up. "Hello!" the priest yelled, waving at the man who was now plunging through the snow even faster in his effort to catch up to him before he went into another building.

"Hello, Father!" Hamish called out.  "We're in need of a little shelter!  Can you provide it?"

"Of course! Come with me to the tavern! I'm sure they have a kettle of soup going there," Father Rudden said as he helped Hamish climb over a good sized drift on the side of the road.

"I seem to have gotten turned around a wee bit," said the policeman.  "I was out on patrol and somehow got lost in the storm.  I'm from Lochdubh normally - I do hope that Irish accent of yours does not mean I've strayed that far?"  He shivered as he made the joke.

"Further than ye think, my son," Father Rudden said with a shake of his head. The tavern was close by, and when he opened the door, Hamish was relieved to see several men dressed in Scottish kilts sitting around and talking while they drank some ale.

Margery, the barmaid, came over quickly.  "You're both frozen t'the bone!  Come an' have a warm’un, Lord love ye!"  She took their wet things and put them aside to dry, then went to fetch their warmed mead.  Slowly, as they defrosted, Father Rudden explained to Hamish where they were.  Naturally, the young man was shocked!  As he watched Wee Jock eating some scraps Margery had hunted up for him, he realized his life was going to take a rather strange turn!