Bruar's Rest

monsters and banshee demons, entertaining all who listened around the fire when night brought its giant shadows. The older sister had a dislike for the culture of her birth, and spent long hours nagging her mother to find a proper home. Megan, on the other hand, was as wild as the fox and just as cunning. Bruar was aware that from that first night when she had lain frozen in his arms a deep attraction was drawing them closer; her nomadic beauty filled his dreams and daily thoughts.
    Rory too noticed his son’s attraction for the fiery Megan and voiced his disapproval, but when he was asked why, the answers were sparsely given. ‘She’s too young... untrained... she has a bad tongue...’ The young man put his father’s negativity down to nothing more than his distrust for anyone unless they shared his ways with the booze. But then Rory said, ‘Those Macdonalds are uncouth—your mother who knew of them told me that.’ Bruar cornered his father, asking why his mother would say such things, and demanded to know. But Rory refused to say anything, and soon Bruar, filled with his attraction to the raven-haired beauty, forgot about his father’s remarks. A warm spring soon cleared the frost from the dykes and pushed out buds on the waiting trees, adding to the tide of emotion growing between the young pair.
    Time on the small campside ran onwards uneventfully. Rory and O’Connor continued drinking when spare money came to them by way of odd jobs from farmers. At times no one would see them for days, then loud intoxicated voices would herald their return from wherever they had been drinking.
    The highlander’s sons resented his behaviour, but it had been a long time since they, as children, waved goodbye to Aunt Helen. Her wisdom had indeed proved to be accurate, yet in their own way they hoped that sooner or later their father would realise the errors of his path.
    Annie’s health slipped forever on a downward spiral. Rachel fussed as Megan tried to bring laughter to her mother’s life, making faces as she recounted how certain people in Kirriemor would lecture her on how not to be a tinker as she hawked there.
    When not running through heather moorland with Bruar, she made grand brooms and heather pot-scourers that she could hawk. These handy kitchen implements were made by tying bundles of heather at the base and hacking off the branches lower down; this would expose the rough edges used by country wives for scrubbing stubborn grease and burnt food from iron pots.
    It was while hawking in the town one day she met a non-tinker who would prove to be their greatest friend. A saviour in every sense of the word was the local doctor, Doctor Mackenzie. He was a small-set man with a reddened face, flowing moustache and greying hair. A clay pipe seemed to live between his teeth, being plucked out and popped into the pocket of a worn brown waistcoat when he was unhobbling his constant companion, an ancient grey mare.
    Megan was heading home after selling a handful of pot-scourers when she accidentally slipped on wet leaves scattered about the doctor’s gate. He’d been trimming a trailing ivy when down she went, grazing both elbow and knee. Taking her to his surgery, an annexe of his parlour, he quickly cleaned and bandaged the injured parts. At first few words were exchanged between them; her kind seldom spoke to strangers. Yet he had soft hands and a friendly face, and soon she warmed to him. A friendship was born from that day on between the campsite dwellers and the elderly medical man who one day would prove more than just a healer.
    Doctor Mackenzie was kind to his nomadic neighbours, and he frequently took a morning ride along the winding dirt track road to check them for ill health. To Annie he proved a godsend on more than one day or fevered night.

     
    It was a beautiful day as Megan rose earlier than the rest to fetch some pheasant eggs. Treading softly in bare feet, shoes in one hand, basket for eggs in the other, she whispered through the thin canvas of Bruar’s tent for him to come with her. Hurriedly he dressed, saying to his half-sleeping father and brother that firewood was needed, he wouldn’t be long. Rory was asleep, or at least pretended to be. Jimmy lifted a limp hand in response as he rolled over to claim his brother’s vacant space in the bed.
    Soon the young couple were running through the heather-filled moor side. Several times they chased the grouse from their warm nests, making them