Bruar's Rest

him of the Seer. A certain red-bearded, one-eyed prophet of dark futures. But little Nicholas was painfully crying for attention. Perhaps the small infant also felt the loss of his father. Nature had not formed words in his infantile head, but all the sobbing and neglect from his mother told him to make as much noise as was possible to get the cuddles and care he needed. Megan curled her arms under his small body and held him to her bosom. At her touch he stopped crying. Rachel too had ceased weeping and was holding her arms out towards her child. Megan laid him by his mother and said, ‘Rachel, life has dealt you a terrible blow, but I know you will get over it. I’m worried about the older men brawling with the drink in them, though. If big Rory should get fired up, that would be worse than Jimmy’s passing.’
    ‘Why, in heaven’s name, sister, should you imagine anything worse than Jimmy never coming home to see his bonnie laddie grow into manhood?’
    ‘Because Rory has taken his pain to Kirriemor with O’Connor to drown his heart in a bottle of whisky, and God help us all if any of those ploughmen says so much as a black word to him.’ Megan’s brow furrowed with worry as she tried to make her sister see the seriousness of the situation.
    Nicolas puckered his lips; Rachel pushed a milky breast to him and said, ‘I don’t think our good-father would be so stupid as to lose his senses when he has us to look after. And as for O’Connor, well, he’s not as bad these days as he once was. Let’s not add any more sorrow to our heavy hearts than we have already in this black time.’
    The baby’s eyelids closed, his belly was full; she laid him down. ‘Megan, go you and put more sticks on the fire. I’ll join you in a minute and we will hold hands and chant away the rest of this night. If the men feel the other side of an angry ploughman’s fist, then maybe our old ancestral spirits will intervene, after all, my Jimmy’s with them now.’
    ‘Well, maybe aye and maybe no, but I feel the ancient spirits don’t have much power in these evil times.’
    ‘Oh now, sister, you mustn’t go and get the weakness in you.’
    ‘Tell me then, Rachel, when you and I sat in this very spot chanting for hours to ward off the badness, why did Jimmy end his life the way he did?’
    ‘I have no answers to war, sister, but if our good father and his friend take a fall, then it’s their own doings and nothing to do with the ancient spirit guides. Now I’m too tired to sit in vigil by the fire, instead I’ll rest here with my baby. In sleep me and Jimmy will keep ourselves warm.’ With those words said Rachel crawled under heavy woollen blankets. Megan kissed her head and they hugged each other until the pain of loss subsided.
    Bruar would not forgive her if she let him down; so by the fire she waited out the night for Rory. As the fire burned to its last embers she heard voices, easily recognised; it was the two wanderers. Not wanting to be seen up at such an hour, she darted into her tent and gave thanks for their safe return. She listened like a mother hen to the men’s sniggering and muff led laughter in the dead of the night. Then she heard a voice, one never heard in the campsite before, the voice of a woman. She sat up in bed and distinctly heard, not one, but two female voices. ‘What the hell are they up to?’ she thought. For a while she listened to the banter; stupid, drunk talk. Unable to contain herself, she stormed into O’Connor’s tent. ‘You two have a nerve, bringing back these slip morts! [loose women]’
    O’Connor stared at Rory with astonishment. ‘Get that bitch seen to or I’ll take a whip across her arse, she takes far too much to do with us menfolk.’ He stooped and apologised to the women, adding, ‘Don’t be taking notice of her, she’s mental.’
    Before Rory could prevent her, she lunged at the Irishman’s throat and began to squeeze, screaming, ‘What a bastard you are! You took my father-in-law into a bloody pub, and him just lost his son; not content with that, you bring him home a whore, a blasted reject from some smelly ploughman’s bed!’
    Rory, full of alcohol, threw her to the ground and slapped her hard across the jaw. She flinched, both in anger and embarrassment, then ran back to her now cold bed. For what was left of the night she sobbed into her feather-stuffed pillow, until sleep at last found its way into her young, and still easily hurt, mind.
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