Bruar's Rest

stop for the hop picking in Kent. It’s there I’ll show you how to get to London.’
    Megan couldn’t believe her luck; not only was she offered a way to be with Bruar, but these folks were good and kind. And they shared her background—yes, things were beginning to shine. ‘When will we get there?’ she asked, excitedly.
    ‘Let me see, there’s the horse sales at Appleby in June, there’s a bit of hawking round this place and that. We might be down hop-picking way after next summer.’
    ‘Next summer!’ Megan’s hopes faded by the second. ‘All that time?’
    They came down from the varda and sat on the seat next to its wooden steps. The old woman whistled up at a blackbird perched on a hanging branch of a laburnum tree that brushed against her wagon roof. Uncannily it whistled back, and then she said, ‘It seems to me you don’t know much about horse-drawn wagons, and less about the distance between the north and south of England. It’s already hop-picking time, but how are we going to get there? It’s a shire I have, not winged Pegasus. I’ll feed and bed you, but I want help. Along with your normal chores, like filling the watering can by five in the morning, fowl has to be plucked and cleaned, rabbits skinned. Take nothing from one-eyed men, for it’s bad luck, and never mention the peacock, it’s real evil, that. My old Frankie, God bless his soul, is dead these last ten years, and I could do with some help. We never got blessed with young uns, so apart from the respect my knowledge brings I’m on me own. Bones creak a lot, and eyesight isn’t good. You’re in luck, because there’s a bigger than usual pot of stew on the chittie irons over the fire, we’ll eat that in an hour.’
    Megan thanked the old woman; but something struck her, she was curious. If she’d no family, why the title, Mother?
    ‘I wondered when that would sink in. I’m a baby-bringer. I know all there is about bringing babies into this big bad world. I’ve delivered at least a hundred. Washing, feeding, healing sick uns and homing little uns whose mothers die of the birth fever, I’ve done it all. Except have my own. Sod’s bloody law, I say!’
    She looked sad, but not for long as she recalled the joy it brings to see a brand new life, so many times. ‘I see them first, and that’s why I’m known as Mother. Also because of that gift God has granted me of knowing what herbs heal and which poison. Yorkshire children don’t suffer the scurvy because I have the cure—boil up the hawthorn flowers, that’s all. Drink it down and no more scurvy. Now, here’s a little advice for you. That rogue I warned you about goes by the name of Bull Buckley, “King of the Gypsies”. He ain’t no king, so get that out of your head, girlie. He’s the best street-fighter ever lived. He can kill and has done, more than once, so keep well clear, not even a glance. He’ll be back around midnight, when some publican has mustered enough courage to ask him to leave his premises. You’ll hear the brute shouting with the drink. Just don’t go near. That’s all I’m saying on the subject. It’s my varda you’ll be sleeping in, so don’t peer through the curtain or else you’ll find a stone come through my window.’
    Megan’s eyes flashed fear, genuine fear, remembering how evil big Rory used to look and sound when fuelled by the demon in the bottle, O’Connor too. She assured the kind old lady there would be no involvement from her with the likes of Buckley. ‘I’d rather eat glass than sit next to a man soaking himself with drink.’
    When she thought back to how much trouble came by way of alcohol it made her all the more serious, and she told the old woman so. ‘Honest, if you’d seen how peaceful and serene our little home of tents was in the Angus Glens before the drink took hold. I had time to notice how willow mixed with ancient oak and yew, and how the trees fought to keep ground space with yellow broom and bluebells. Wild daffodils, forget-me-nots and primroses grew along natural forest paths. Gentle, mild-mannered roe deer skipped among lily-of-the-valley, leaving the merest hoof prints on the mossy earth. Then Jimmy died and we thought Bruar had been killed too. That’s when it all got serious with the drink. The older men started on that hell-filled path. They got lost, and couldn’t find the way back. I never noticed Mother Nature’s joys after that, only wondered what manner of state the men would