No Great Mischief

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1999

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Chapters 22-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 22 Summary

A small secluded community builds up around the mines, and only those with badges can enter, despite the constant stream of people who wish to get inside. In a parking lot outside the camp, a makeshift village is erected. It sells products, such as clothing and pornography. There are also women in the parking lot, seeking money or a good time.

One morning, Alex and Calum venture out into the parking lot. They hear a familiar song being played on a fiddle by a small man hunched up in an abandoned car. The man introduces himself as part Scottish and knows a little Gaelic, so Calum takes him for something to eat. After he eats ravenously, the man plays his fiddle again. Gradually, people from other ethnic groups begin to join in the music making. They play for hours; people dance, and beer is drunk.

Everything stops when the superintendent appears. He demands to know what is going on and questions the identity of the strange man with the fiddle. Calum vouches for him, but the music breaks down and everyone retries. Calum welcomes the newcomer to stay, and the next day, the men go to work. The man remains with them for two days; he tries to work in the mine but his claustrophobia prevents it. When he disappears the next day, no one is surprised. Two weeks later, they receive a gift of moose meat wrapped in cheese paper, with a note of thank you and a picture of a fiddle sketched in pencil.

Chapter 23 Summary

Alex remembers a story told to him by his sister, Catherine. When she was visiting Aberdeen with her husband, she stayed with a group of friends. She overhears a maid say something in Gaelic, and later that night, is awakened by a figure standing beside her bed. The figure beckons her to follow, and unable to wake her husband, Catherine does so. When she tries to open the door, it is locked. When she opens the door at last, she sees the figure of a man wearing a kilt sleeping on the floor of the hallway with a key in his hand. When she checks again, he is gone.

The next day, her husband cannot recall the maid or a figure in the night. He leaves to inspect oil towers for two days. Catherine searches for either the man or the woman but finds neither. Later, she takes a car and visits a castle in an area tightly bound to her family’s history. The encroaching tide nearly separates her from her car, and she meets a winkle picker, who insists that Catherine is “from here” and has only been gone for a bit.

They walk together to the woman’s home, where her husband is sat on a wooden chair. They talk about Scotland and Canada, as well as Bonnie Prince Charlie, who visited the castle. More people come into the house, and when they start talking, Catherine feels a sudden rush of fluent Gaelic from her youth. They share stories of the family, different perspectives of the same anecdotes from both sides of the ocean.

Chapter 24 Summary

Alex passes through the Toronto streets and thinks about the seasonal workers in the fields, who work hard to remain legally in Canada. They are allowed to stay nine months on temporary visas, often while their families are hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Chapters 22-24 Analysis

These three chapters portray the various ways in which family manifests in the novel. In Chapter 22, Calum and Alex meet a stranger. Through their shared language and possible genetic ties, they become firm friends. They share music, food, and drink together. The entire evening takes on an almost magical quality, with the man’s fiddle playing uniting formerly disparate ethnic groups. Although the man is unable to stay at the mine, he does leave a present and a note of thanks two weeks later. He was welcomed into the clan and given food and shelter. For the clann Chalum Ruaidh, the man’s knowledge of Gaelic makes him practically family. The shared language, music, and history binds them together.

This is reflected in Catherine’s own trip back to Scotland. Although she has never visited before and is very much Canadian, the locals insist that she has simply been away a short while. Again, there is a shared love of songs, language, and history that forms the real familial bonds. In the book, family does not mean simple genetics. Rather, family manifests through shared cultural values and history. Catherine’s experience on the island—much like Alex’s in the mine—binds her into the clann Chalum Ruaidh like never before.

In the present day, Alex extends this consideration of family to the seasonal workers in the Canadian farmlands. They are far away from their family and bound by bureaucracies such as visas and work permits, paperwork that dictates when and where they can go. This is in contrast to Alex’s own family members, who simply boarded a ship from Scotland and were given land on arrival in the New World. The contrast between the two experiences of coming to Canada is stark. Alex’s ancestors brought over a large family and settled for as long as they pleased, whereas the seasonal workers are far more restricted. They must be separated and are not allowed to stay permanently. There is a sympathy for these workers in the text, and Alex repeatedly returns to them when he is considering his own family.