Bruar's Rest

her neat flower beds; sprays of rainwater fanning around her bare feet. Such was the joy when she returned to bed, they cried into each other all night long.
    From that night Bruar progressed in leaps and bounds. Life took on a gentle serenity. She continued to wander the high hills gathering heather roots and making her pot scourers. He took on work with a shepherd, and showed a wonderful ability for the job. Soon he was able to look after his own flock. With his doggies excitedly circling his feet, the seasons passed in a gentle, harmonious pace.
    Children, however, failed to bless the quiet household and many a time Megan would take crocheted mittens to a neighbour’s new baby, just to have the excuse to look and hold the tiny infant.
    One night, while Bruar had been helping with a farmer’s lambing and had been out all night, Megan found sleep difficult. Thinking that she heard him on the doorstep, she wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and opened the door. Half-expecting the dogs to rush past her, she was puzzled to see no one there. She called his name several times and was about to close the door, when she was suddenly startled by a voice. ‘Please, missus, don’t shut yer door!’
    Megan stepped outside and saw a shivering girl, no more than fifteen if she was that, standing by the house. ‘Come out of the shadows, lassie, and tell me why you are out at this hour.’
    ‘Missus, ah canna keep it, ah’ve left it lying in yon wee gairden shed. I ken you’ll be good tae it, God bless ye, missus.’ The girl reached out to Megan and pushed a torn blanket into her hands. With her sleeve she wiped tears away and said, ‘Ah’m a tinker, and faither would kill me. I ca’ her Mary.’
    At that the girl turned on her heels, and before Megan could utter a word was gone down the road. She wondered if the family was camping in their old site. She wanted to ask who they were, but darkness and the speed of the girl’s departure prevented a conversation. Megan felt a sense of déja vu, flashes of visions of herself running off down the road all those years ago. She was about to go back inside the house when a small cry came from behind her in the old garden shed. Her investigation revealed what she had already guessed would be there. Fearing that an infant was lying there in ill-health or worse, she stepped inside. It was dark, but a lamp hung on a nail behind the door. She rushed back to the house and lit the lamp at her fire. Soon she found the tiny parcel curled in a basket covered in bracken—a baby girl, newly born. It took her no time to bring the babe into the warmth of the house and fill it full of warmed milk.
    But what to do? Whoever mother was, she certainly wanted no one to know of her child. Megan felt certain, though, that she’d come back when things were better. But she waited and waited, and as one month followed another, the mother never returned.
    So into their lives came a daughter who grew strong and single-minded. Her adoptive parents from the beginning told her the truth. It seemed important that she knew of her background. Years passed, and although encouraged to do so, young Mary never left to search for her natural mother. She was content to share her life with clumsy Bruar, even although he stammered and sometimes uttered not a word for months. But when he did find his voice, she marvelled at his tales of Vikings, peat bog monsters, wild waters and high mountains.
    The most precious memories of all came from her proud surrogate mother. From her, in winter nights beside a roaring fire, she learned the story of how against insurmountable odds she set off to search for her severely shell-shocked husband, and regardless of fiend or foe, single-handedly brought him home...
    One thing moved and haunted Mary—that ‘promise’. Megan always felt she might let her man down when he talked about the ancient burial site. So when her death approached before his, she laid it on Mary’s shoulders, and asked her, when his time came, if she could fulfil the promise made all those years ago on a bonny windswept hillside.
    It was a responsibility she shouldered with pride, and carried out one winter day.
    Below the derelict Parbh lighthouse, his remains lie for eternity. Not so his spirit! It dances in the salty sea sprays, gliding among the puffins and seagulls. It holds back hordes of Viking warriors, then sees them blindly descending into the peat bogs of Sutherland. And nearby there’s a