Bruar's Rest

drooping willow trees. She went up and over green meadows, where sheep grazed in peaceful contentment. This was the Yorkshire Dales, and like her precious Scotland, it seemed a beautiful place where songbirds sang in full-throated harmony.
    Apart from a lone shepherd, she met hardly any folks at all. Three days had passed and seen her curl up on the ground behind dykes and tree stumps; how grateful she was, then, to come across a small hamlet. Snickly Rigg dipped into a green valley. Perhaps only nine or ten thatch-roofed houses made up this tranquil village.
    By now she was desperately in need of a substantial meal, so she knocked gently on the first door that she came to. An elderly man, thick-set and rugged, brown pipe suspended from a small mouth, answered the door. ‘What can I do for you, young woman?’ he asked, looking her up and down.
    ‘Can you spare a drop of tea, mister?’
    For a while he chewed and puffed upon the pipe, before saying, ‘Can you pay?’
    ‘There’s no money to my name, because a devil stole my bag back in—what’s the name of that town with a train station in it, it has a river and bridges in it too?’
    ‘Not many trains come this way, but I think you could mean Newcastle. That’s a long ways back, lass, did someone drive you here?’
    She felt this old man would be hard-pushed to spare her water, never mind tea, with all the questioning he was doing.
    ‘No one drove me. I can shift these legs and run thirty miles in a day. Now do you have any tea?’
    He stepped back inside his house, not unlike the low thatch-roofed cottar home of Helen, and motioned her to sit on the dyke by the gate. Soon he was wobbling out on bandy legs, with tea in one hand and a welcome sandwich of cheese in the other. He sat on a wicker chair, tucked his legs under it and offered her a three-legged stool. An old shepherd dog, smelly and panting, rubbed its head against her thigh. The dog was friendly, so she gently ran a hand over its head and down its back.
    ‘You’re kind to me, sir, and I wasn’t lying when I said my bag was stolen, so what can I do in payment of this?’
    ‘Does the cow pay for her grass, and the pheasant for the wind in its wings? What kind of man would I be, if I couldn’t share my food with somebody in want? God knows there’s more than enough. But come to think of it, the wife’s grave could do with some more of your flowers.’
    She was puzzled why he should ask her for flowers.
    ‘You’re a gypsy girl, are you not?’
    ‘I’m a Scottish tinker, never met any gypsies.’
    ‘Can you not make the pretty flowers and give the blessing of the Egyptian?’
    Before she could ask what he meant, three dark-skinned girls dressed in brightly coloured gowns, gold rings in their ears, suddenly came laughing and chatting round the corner.
    ‘Hello, Mr Thrower, are you wanting a bunch of flowers?’ one called out.
    ‘See, here they come, the pretty gypsies with their flowers and their blessings. Lovely they are, to brighten an old man’s heart. Yes, Lucy, give me six for my Jane’s grave.’
    Megan watched the three girls approach and felt, in an inexplicable way, drawn to them. One stepped forward and gave her a quick glance from head to toe. It reminded her of a speedy stoat, with head darting to examine every inch of a young rabbit before pouncing. The pair of steel-blue eyes gave Megan the third degree. Her inquisitor said to the others, ‘She is our kind.’ Turning to Megan she asked, hands on hips, ‘Who be your kin?’
    Megan’s quick outburst of thick Scottish dialect made them laugh loudly. ‘I’m from the Clan Macdonald,’ she said, proudly puffing her breast out like the prize peacock in a stately garden.
    They were mocking her, how dare they? Her hackles rose. They’d no right laughing at such a proud Scots name. She told them so.
    ‘We aren’t joking at your name, it was the way you said it. We’ve never met any Scottish gypsies before, but it’s a good day this, because the more of us there is then the better, don’t you think? By the way, we are the Lees. Come and put flowers on Mr Thrower’s wife’s grave with us. I’m Lucy, the pretty one, these be me cousins, Anna and Ruth. What’s your name?’
    ‘Megan,’ she said, feeling much stronger after having eaten.
    Her new friends were like a breath of fresh air. As they followed the old man down a few steps into a small enclosure of scattered gravestones she judged that they were in her age