Bitter Blue

The edifice in the distance was unfinished. It rose as others fell. ‘What do you think?’ said Forsyth, sucking on his pipe. ‘What should I call it?’

     ‘Glengorm, my lord, from the Gaelic for blue,’ said his advisor, a tenant fluent in that language. Forsyth smiled.

     ‘That sounds a royal colour, beautiful, elegant, for my house,’ he said. The tenant said nothing. Glengorm Castle reflected its owner’s ambitions. It was to be an example to all those in the area, rising splendid and Baronial, with its pseudo-medieval Victorian turrets, towers, Gothic arches, imposing stonework and grand entrances. One such arch was just coming into being, like a half-finished eyebrow.

     To the west on Mull, the smoke still rose from the remains of far simpler homes. The windows had glowed red in anger when their occupants quit, on Forsyth’s eviction orders, and were now a dead, sullen black, the roofs gone, bald and desolate. The smoke still rose from them in mourning, the funeral ashes of a way of life. The smoke was blue and grey.

     Forsyth’s Gaelic speaking tenant turned his head and watched the smoke, still rising in the far distance. The laird shaded his eyes and looked out towards the beach. ‘What a beautiful view,’ he said. The tenant said nothing. ‘My house will be the grandest on the island, to rival the ruins of Duart Castle,’ he boasted. He sucked on his pipe. ‘The hunting season will soon be upon us. Fetch my hunter,’ he said. The tenant tugged at his cap and left to do so.

     Forsyth left shortly on his hunter, a fine black stallion. He cantered away up the drive, towards the main road. The tenant leant on his stick, cut from the woods of the estate. He watched him go. Far to the west, the smoke still rose from the dying settlements, the life in them long gone. The sheep farmers would be arriving soon, to take over the land so sorely vacated. The tenant spat carefully in the direction of the rider and continued to watch the path he had taken. There came a sharp crack, as if someone had left a branch in the driveway to fell the horse. Perhaps there would be an accident. The tenant said nothing.