The Highlander

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Diane Fraser

The Highlander

The bedroom I shared with my sister faced West, into the large field that was our neighbor’s yards.  My great grandmother Fraser built the house, she was hearty Scottish peasant stock and she left the house to my Dad, her only living relative, when she died the year I was born.  Surrounded by pine woods in the back and a long driveway in front, both my great grandmother and my mother were avid gardeners.  People driving by would slow down to look at our beautiful yard.

I loved dusk even then, when everything took on a blue-green light and the yellow, white and pink blossoms stood out briefly, an electric brightness in the emerging shadows. Sometimes the bagpipe player would show up in the field. I heard him before I saw him, a sound unlike any other, and I’d go to my window and pull back the curtains so I could see him. He was always dressed in his kilt,  his full Highland dress. He had red hair, a beard and moustache, and he was always marching in the direction of my house. He’d never cross the line into our yard, where he would’ve had to duck under pine boughs. I’d see him march around the field, playing his pipe, and then walk off towards the direction of the side street.

I asked my mother about him, because I’d seen him a few times, and I wanted to know where he lived, but she’d never seen him. “There’s no bagpipe player in our neighborhood,” she said, pulling something out of the refrigerator for dinner. Then I asked my sister, whose nickname was Chimp and who roamed the woods and backyards of our neighborhood on a daily basis. She was a tomboy and was always getting into trouble along with the neighborhood boys. She said she had no idea who I was talking about. Funny that he never appeared when she was with me in our room, or when my mother was in the yard, working in the garden. It was always when I was alone in my bedroom, immersed in some book or drawing. Come to think of it, I only saw him from my bedroom window. And I was outdoors a lot too, playing games, building forts, and catching toads like all the other kids in my neighborhood. Even now, bagpipe music cuts right to my heart. When I hear it, I start to cry.