Originally published in the June 2007 Clann Tartan Newsletter.
My name is Jane Campbell. My father, Robert, was a minor member of the clan, being a tenant of the laird in a small holding between Loch Awe and the sea. My father was crippled in the battle of Glenlivit fighting for the laird; he had already sired me, a daughter, but was not able to get a son to succeed him. Confined as he was to the house he became fond of me, and taught me my letters, and came to depend on me in the management of his holdings. My mother died when I was in my teens, but my father, crippled though he was, clung to life until he was an old man. I looked after our holdings in all matters, and was accustomed to ruling over both the women and the men in their tasks.
Alas, my father died, and the lands, as they could not pass to me, passed to my father's brother's eldest son. William was not a man I loved, and I found it grieved my heart sore to see management of all I had held pass to him and to his wife. I was reduced to a dependent. In time, I found that I turned more and more to the company of one of the household men, but this only created new problems. I could not stay in my home and be comfortable, and I could not marry David McBride at all, so eventually, when Col. Gaffney's Regiment came through our area, we agreed to leave together, my man to follow the drum, myself to stay with him until we reached port. I have a distant cousin that I have always valued in that town, and I hope to stay and make myself useful to her while Master McBride is overseas, may God keep him.