Dark Mountain

ForewordI will relate events as they occurred and leave you, the reader of this journal to judge what is real and what is not. I cannot explain more than I write; perhaps you can understand things that I cannot, or maybe there is no explanation. I can only say what I saw, and what I heard and felt and experienced. I can do no more. Please, God that I did not do the things I may have done, or see the things I believe I saw. I shall give you a little background before I properly begin so that you can slot me into the context of my story. I am an orphan. In 1896 somebody dumped me on the doorstep of an orphanage in Perthshire in Scotland, without a note or an explanation and only a scanty white cloth as covering. I knew nothing about that until I was eight years old when the good people who ran the orphanage took me aside and told me what little they knew about my life. I listened in silence and gave no hint of my feelings, for that was the way things were. I had already learned it was better to merge into the background than to step forward, and I knew how to sit on the sidelines while more important people took centre stage. I accepted the meagre facts of my life. I knew that nobody cared for me; I was a faceless, unwanted child, a burden on society and dependant on charity for my existence. Perhaps my lack of worth explains why I have always been interested in the outdoors, in the wild spaces of Scotland. They provide an escape from the realities of modern life and allow me to think and contemplate and wonder who I am and from where I came. One can avoid people out there. One does not have to watch those fortunate enough to have friends and family and wish that life was different. One can be oneself. However, I had never expected the spaces to be quite so wild as we found in those few days up in the Rough Quarter, the terrible peninsula of the Ceathramh Garbh in north-west Sutherland. Nor, God help me, did I expect the other events that happened on An Cailleach, the hill that people called The Dark Mountain. I can only hope and pray for my immortal soul, as the eagles soar above me.