My name is Elizabeth Dougall and this is my story.
I was born in a town called Wik, in Northern Scotland in 1549. My father was a weaver who made the finest cloth in all of Scotland and sold it all over the country. He occasionally took me with him to find new fibers for my mother to spin and sell the cloth he had woven.
It is tradition among the traveling and landed merchants of the Highlands to ensure the safety of their families. My father honoured that tradition at all times. When he and I were traveling together, we would stop at the same houses each time we came to a town because the homeowners were beholden to my father as he was to them. Father would tell me, "If anything happens to me while we travel, stop at one of the familiar houses where I have introduced you. They are required to give you safe haven, a bed and food if you have need. They will see you safely home."
Some time later, I was married, as my father had promised, to a landed merchant's son whose name was John Stewart. It was a good marriage and both families profited handsomely from the joining. Unfortunately, my husband was killed in a peasant uprising and the manor house I was living in was destroyed. My handmaid, Hannah, and I were safe, along with my daughter, Olivia, as we had been visiting with my mother at the time for my father's wake. When we arrived home and found the house in shambles and the entire family dead, we set out for the nearest of the households I had been introduced to as a child.
We arrived in John o'Groates to find that my childhood friend, Eric, the son of the chieftain and therefore heir to Clan Smith had just become Chieftain himself. We joined in the wake, celebrating a great man's life and Eric and I got to know each other again.
Eric took us in as tradition demanded, then asked for my hand in marriage. As I had already been married before, he had no requirement to ask of my family, so I accepted as soon as the appropriate mourning period was over. Eric introduced me to his son and heir, Donald, who was a toddler at the time. Donnie's mom died in childbirth and Eric had been raising him alone. Hannah and I took over the responsibilities and Donnie and Olivia grew up as brother and sister. Years passed, the children grew in strength and beauty, the war broke out again among the clans again. There was a meeting of the Smith Clan and the elders decided it was time to move on. Eric's brother, Maolcolm, was captain of his own sailing ship and told us all of the New World where there was plenty of everything and there was no more war. We packed everything we would need in the New World - a few precious heirlooms, seeds to plant in the rich new soil, medicines for the trip, spinning and weaving supplies, such livestock as could travel by sea, food and clothing.
... Continued on the shores of the lovely Shire of Eisenmarche
