An anonymous piece in the fall 1864 issue of the Edenborough Review welcomed MacGregor’s return to writing and then lambasted volume one of This Iron Race for:

…the remorseless misery of its leading characters, of whom there are so many the reader might be forgiven to understand he is to act as their shepherd and herd them into order, engenders a sense of despair out of keeping with an activity chiefly undertaken for pleasure. What is MacGregor trying to tell us in his earnest new voice? Are we each entirely alone, whether from choice, vocation, or misfortune? Is there no joy in company or are we islands, distant one from another? The wonder is not MacGregor spent two years cloistered in his abbey but that on rejoining society he should give us such a parade of unhappiness. It is as though a castaway newly removed from his desert strand has neither a good or a kind word for anyone.

Employing the then infant science of textual analytics, Dr Claude Crabtree, in The Wizard of the North (King James University Press, 1930) concluded this unenthusiastic review was penned by MacGregor himself out of pique at the bastardisation wrought on the novel by his publishers.

Although not expert in textual analytics we cannot agree with Dr Crabtree; MacGregor had a family to support and no matter how frustrated he was with Beresford and Lucas, the first volume of This Iron Race had to sell, and critical reports in the Edenborough Review would hardly assist.

Leaving aside authorship of the review, it does make a serious point; all the main characters in volume one, and in the successive volumes, are to some degree set apart from those around them and this separation is a source of unhappiness. Psychologists would properly term this ‘alienation’ for the true source of each character’s isolation is the perception they are unlike those around them and must carry their burden alone or suffer from those perceiving them to be different, for example: Captain Wolfe; or their difference defies description, as Eolhwynne tells Lord MacDonald.

Alienation in particular is at the heart of Bheathain’s circumstances and explains his hostile reaction to Màiri informing him he is acquiring the gift of Grace. Already stigmatised by the mark on his face he can only see Grace as a second cause for people to disassociate from him.

Lord MacDonald also suffers from alienation but here the cause is his position in society. The finances of his estate depend on good governance, and he feels responsible to his clansmen—two forces not easily reconciled. Murdo Dixon ably assists him, but Dixon is primarily his servant and not someone with whom he can fully share his burden. Those with whom MacDonald might share it, namely Sir David Mackenzie and the Commission Men, have a very different attitude to the care of an estate and he cannot take any comfort from them.

Paavo Jukola has, although he is almost certainly unaware of it, chosen alienation for he is a spy for the Hanseatic League, which, he erroneously believes, supports his hostility toward Russia. His alienation may have a moral standing, for he believes he deceives for a higher purpose, but his acceptance of a continuing role in the league after Danneberg has explained their true position to him, shows Jukola actively thrives on his sense of alienation.

Initially, Sir David Mackenzie may seem the exception to the alienation of other characters, but this is a misreading. Although surrounded by his loving wife and family, his concern for them, expressed in the finery of his household, comes from depopulating his estates and alienating those who look to him for care.

There is one exception among the major characters. Màiri Mulcahy has not chosen or had reason to be alienated from those around her. Freed of the isolation clearsight brought her, she initially continues her isolation by setting up home on Haelda’s Island but now recognises she wants acceptance and a position where she can be of greater use to those around her. Chief among the people she seeks acceptance from is Bheathain Somhairle, provided he can meet her reasonable conditions.

Why might MacGregor have chosen to give his reader so many characters alienated from those around them? There are two possibilities, though they are supportive rather than competing.

Firstly, the subtext of This Iron Race is acceptance and toleration, most obviously of those with Grace.

Secondly, MacGregor began This Iron Race after enduring two years of isolation at Arbinger Abbey following the death of Lady Madeleine MacGregor. Though his isolation was, one presumes voluntary, it was also a response to grief and despair, and perhaps the belief he was unworthy of good company. His journal makes it clear he took some of the blame for Madeleine’s death on himself as he was aware of her unhappiness at Arbinger and believed he had failed in his duty as a husband and father-to-be.

Grief especially isolates us because the grief-stricken believe no one can fully understand their loss. This was confirmed for MacGregor by his own father’s brusque (though well-intentioned) advice to,

get over it swiftly or lose all position in society,

as quoted by MacGregor in his journal. Thus, MacGregor chose to depict alienation as a plea for the toleration of magick and those who practise it and because he knew how terrible it could be.

If your editor may speak of his own circumstances, he has some personal experience of MacGregor’s motivations. No blame attaches for the death of his father, the poet, Thomas Warbrook, but he is cruelly aware he has not lived up to his father’s expectations or those who expected him to follow his father’s illustrious career. Comparison with one’s father’s work always inspires gloom and, of course, one misses his company and advice dreadfully. Your editor is also father to his own son, Gerald, yet there lie more degrees of separation. It is not that we do not get on, but Gerald is so distant. Presently he is working for some charity in Sumatra. Quite literally, we must turn half the globe to find him. Of his ex-wife, Edith, your editor shall say nothing. In his cups but honouring the near completion of work on volume one, he has opened a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Sometimes we wonder if all we have for company is Tam MacGregor and that damn fool Hendryk van Zelden.

And the cats of course. Though Boris and Tusker are probably next door at Mrs Pumphrey’s; she spoils them dreadfully.