Bruar's Rest

at the Parbh, then I’ll come back and take care of you. And I make this solemn promise, you will want for nothing! I’ll clean and care like you were my own father. Come to think of it, Doctor, it’s a father you’ve been to me these past years.’
    Doctor Mackenzie put his arm around her shoulders and smiled. ‘That’s my girl. Now let’s us get on with things.’
    Back at the cottage, his colleague stitched O’Connor’s face and chest-wound. Mackenzie emptied an old leather medicine bag of its contents; a few yellowed bandages and some half-filled bottles of iodine among other bits and medical bobs and gave it to Megan. ‘This will take a few necessities if and when you get them, lass.’
    Still feeling the doctor had been over-generous, she reluctantly shook the hand of O’Connor, kissed the wrinkled cheek of the only friend she had left in the world and set off. The good doctor had organised Rory’s remains to be hearsed to Forfar train station, and from there it would go on to Thurso.

N INE

     
    A s she gazed from the train heading northward, Megan looked back towards her beloved high hills. She felt she belonged there, and that in no time she’d be back with her dear old saviour, Doctor Mackenzie. She thought on Rachel and wee Nicholas, her one and only nephew, wondering if they’d ever meet again. She’d promised Annie that when she was back once more she’d tend the forest resting-place and never allow it to be flowerless.
    Thinking on O’Connor’s thickset Irish frame, brought a cold shiver, she pulled a shawl over her shoulders. Something about him always made her feel uneasy. Oh, nothing that one could put a finger on, just a sense of foreboding. Her old friend would give him shelter until his health was regained, but whether or not their roads would ever cross again was not for present thoughts.
    Her train journey passed through the most stunning scenery she had only previously heard about from Bruar. Several times mountains of fearsome splendour threw their mighty peaks toward a powder-blue sky, leaving her awe-struck. Now she could see why her man’s eyes used to open wide with wonder as he told stories of the magnificent Highlands. After a journey that was exhilarating but left her dog-tired, her train whistled to a halt in Thurso Station. Gingerly stepping from the carriage, she hoped someone had been sufficiently informed by the letter Doctor Mackenzie had sent ‘To whom it may concern, The Chapel, Durness.’
    Shading her brow with chilly fingers she surveyed the smoke-shrouded station. She could see no one remotely likely to ease her of her oblong burden. An officious voice cut through her growing worry. ‘With respect, lassie, we have to get it off the train, we’ve got a schedule to keep, you know.’ The stationmaster was quiet but forthright. She began to fret. Perhaps her in-laws hadn’t got the message sent to the church in Durness. Before fear took a tighter grip on her, a loud voice boomed from behind the station wall. A moustached man of over six feet walked over to her. ‘Are you Megan, the one with the coffin?’
    It was obvious to see by the flowing black gown and white collar that the letter had indeed found a positive response. Father Flynn shook her hand so hard her neck hurt.
    ‘There’s a three-day journey ahead across wild bog land. I’ve taken some food for our trip, no doubt you’ll be hungry. Helen isn’t strong enough to come all this way, so she asked me to.’ He was reading her mind, ‘But I know two fine inns where we can rest.’
    She was soon heading along a single-track road on a plain carriage with the coffin secured on the back, pulled by two fine heavy Clydesdales. Her sandwiches of beef and mustard tasted so good. In no time she and her constant chattering companion were sleeping soundly in the first stop: Bay Inn, a peaceful little whitewashed house with three bedrooms. The couple who ran the place were nowhere to be seen, but the priest informed Megan that it was the coffin that kept them in their rooms. The kitchen had a ‘help yourself’ sign, and from the table they fed on cold porridge, buttered bread and milk. The next night a similar attitude prevailed from another set of landlords. It left Megan thinking that if Father Flynn hadn’t been there she’d have ended up dumping Rory in the bog, which went as far as the eye could see in every direction.
    During the long journey, her fellow traveller learned the whole of her