Synopsis of Sgian Dhu ( Black Knife)
By
William G Graham
Sgian Dhu, the black knife was taken from young Coll’s Uncle Seamus on the fateful field of Culloden by a redcoat soldier. Coll escapes the carnage and begins to make his way home to Arnamuchan, not knowing Iain, his other uncle, and Angus his young friend, have been taken prisoner. Uncle Iain to the dreaded ‘hole’ at Inverness, and Angus to the transportation ships.
On his journey, Coll meets Marion Macleod, and her young son Fergus, who comes to regard Coll as his hero until Coll is forced to leave them and make his way to France where he enlist in the French army, for this Fergus never forgives him, and still carries the grudge when his grandson, also Fergus, enlists in the Black Watch where he and his friend Alan from the same glen are conscripted into a band of misfits, where, under Captain Crawford a Lowland Scot they are assigned to destroy a bridge high up in the Spanish Sierras during the Napolionic wars.
Here Fergus encounters the French Captain Joseph Tabac, who through a series of incidents has come into possession of this same Sgian Dhu when Coll’s widow was forced to sell it after her husband’s death.
After a few narrow escapes, both boys return home to be confronted by the Improvements’ or Highland Clearances, where Alan seeks out his betrothed. But this is not the end of their adventures.
By
William G Graham
Sgian Dhu, the black knife was taken from young Coll’s Uncle Seamus on the fateful field of Culloden by a redcoat soldier. Coll escapes the carnage and begins to make his way home to Arnamuchan, not knowing Iain, his other uncle, and Angus his young friend, have been taken prisoner. Uncle Iain to the dreaded ‘hole’ at Inverness, and Angus to the transportation ships.
On his journey, Coll meets Marion Macleod, and her young son Fergus, who comes to regard Coll as his hero until Coll is forced to leave them and make his way to France where he enlist in the French army, for this Fergus never forgives him, and still carries the grudge when his grandson, also Fergus, enlists in the Black Watch where he and his friend Alan from the same glen are conscripted into a band of misfits, where, under Captain Crawford a Lowland Scot they are assigned to destroy a bridge high up in the Spanish Sierras during the Napolionic wars.
Here Fergus encounters the French Captain Joseph Tabac, who through a series of incidents has come into possession of this same Sgian Dhu when Coll’s widow was forced to sell it after her husband’s death.
After a few narrow escapes, both boys return home to be confronted by the Improvements’ or Highland Clearances, where Alan seeks out his betrothed. But this is not the end of their adventures.
