A Place Called Freedom (1995)

They threw him across the back of a horse and covered his nakedness with a blanket, then they took him to Castle Jamisson and put him in the larder, still naked and tied hand and foot. He lay on the stone floor, shivering, surrounded by the dripping carcasses of deer, cattle and pigs. He tried to warm himself by moving as much as he could, but with his hands and feet tied he could not generate much heat. Eventually he managed to sit up with his back against the furry hide of a dead stag. For a while he sang to keep up his spirits—first the ballads they crooned at Mrs. Wheighel’s on Saturday nights, then a few hymns, then some old Jacobite rebel ditties; but when he ran out of songs he felt worse than before.

His head hurt from the musket blows, but what pained him most was how easily the Jamissons had taken him. What a fool he was to have delayed his departure. He had given them time to take action. While they were planning his downfall he had been feeling his cousin’s breasts.

It did not help to speculate about what they had in store for him. If he did not freeze to death here in the larder they would probably send him to Edinburgh and have him tried for assaulting the gamekeepers. Like most crimes, that was a hanging matter.

The light coming through the cracks around the door gradually faded as night fell. They came for him just as the stable yard clock struck eleven. There were six men this time, and he did not attempt to fight them.

Davy Taggart, the blacksmith who made the miners’ tools, fitted an iron collar like Jimmy Lee’s around Mack’s neck. It was the ultimate humiliation: a sign for all the world to see, saying he was another man’s property. He was less than a man, subhuman; he was livestock.

They untied his bonds and threw some clothes at him: a pair of breeches, a threadbare flannel shirt and a ripped waistcoat. He put them on hastily and still felt cold. The keepers tied his hands again and put him on a pony.

They rode to the pit.

The Wednesday shift would begin in a few minutes’ time, at midnight. The ostler was putting a fresh horse in harness to drive the bucket chain. Mack realized they were going to make him go the round.

He groaned aloud. It was a crushing, humiliating torture. He would have given his life for a bowl of hot porridge and a few minutes in front of a blazing fire. Instead he was doomed to spend the night in the open air. He wanted to fall on his knees and beg for mercy; but the thought of how that would please the Jamissons stiffened his pride, and instead he roared: “You’ve no right to do this! No right!” The keepers laughed at him.

They stood him in the muddy circular track around which the pithead horses trotted day and night. He squared his shoulders and held his head high, although he felt like bursting into tears. They tied him to the harness, facing the horse, so that he could not get out of its way. Then the ostler whipped the horse into a trot.

Mack began to run backward.

He stumbled almost immediately, and the horse drew up. The ostler whipped it again, and Mack scrambled to his feet just in time. He began to get the knack of running backward. Then he became overconfident and slipped on the icy mud. This time the horse charged on. Mack slid to one side, writhing and twisting to get away from the hooves, and was dragged alongside the horse for a second or two, then he lost control and slipped under the horse’s feet. The horse trod on his stomach and kicked his thigh, then stopped.

They made Mack stand up, then they lashed the horse again. The blow to the stomach had winded Mack, and his left leg felt weak, but he was forced into a limping backward run.

He gritted his teeth and tried to settle into a rhythm. He had seen others suffer this punishment—Jimmy Lee, for one. They had survived, although they bore the marks: Jimmy Lee had a scar over his left eye where the horse had kicked him, and the resentment that burned inside Jimmy was fueled by the memory of the humiliation. Mack, too, would survive. His mind dulled with pain and cold and defeat, he thought of nothing but staying on his feet and avoiding those deadly hooves.

As time went by he began to feel an affinity with the horse. They were both in harness and compelled to run in a circle. When the ostler cracked his whip, Mack went a little faster; and when Mack stumbled, the horse seemed to slacken its pace for a moment to allow him to recover.

He was aware of the hewers arriving at midnight to begin their shift. They came up the hill talking and shouting, ribbing one another and telling jokes as usual; then they fell silent as they approached the pithead and saw Mack. The keepers hefted their muskets menacingly whenever a miner seemed disposed to stop. Mack heard Jimmy Lee’s voice raised in indignation and saw, from the corner of his eye, three or four other miners surround Jimmy, taking him by the arms and pushing and shoving him toward the pit to keep him out of trouble.