Bruar's Rest

woman’s presence was his message to me, saying “Back off”.’
    ‘Don’t tell me you would have taken him in after trying to throttle you, then breaking another man’s back?’
    ‘No, we were finished. But I was his woman for a whole year, and that hurt.’
    ‘I’m a stranger to you, Ruth, and I’m humbled by the confidence you put in me, but it’s well rid of him you are. I say that without ever seeing Bull Buckley.’
    ‘Oh, the pleasure isn’t far off; he’s due back any day now. I feel him in my bones—the pig!’
    Next morning, the breeze from the night before had whipped up into a good-going gale, just ideal to dry heavy covers and blankets. Mother Foy hadn’t needed to instruct Megan to fill the enamel bath with water and start scrubbing bed-covers. Years of never ignoring a strong drying wind had her well taught. Anyway, it gave her plenty of time to think about how she’d try to convince Lucy to change her mind. The rest of the womenfolk in the circle had similar ideas about harnessing the gale. By mid-morning, ropes tied from wagon-tops to trees danced and swung with bedclothes, heavy skirts, babies’ woollies, old men’s shirts and young men’s trousers. Young women, covered in soapy suds and smelling of strong carbolic, sang and laughed their way through the wind, thanking an unseen God for his gift of clothes-drying weather.
    After a light lunch of bread, cheese and apples, the four girls, satisfied with a successful washday, set off to frolic on the moor. The wind would blow a while yet. Lots of folding clothes and bed-making awaited their return, but every day has a time for relaxation and ‘What better time,’ thought Megan, ‘to work on Lucy.’
    Anna and Ruth found an area where no heather grew. As they stretched tired muscles on the warmed earth, Megan asked Lucy to walk with her, making the excuse that she wasn’t tired. ‘We Scots prefer to walk off our stiffness.’
    Lucy knew that she’d have to talk, to explain, and so took the hint. With the others hidden from view, they sat down on some rocks further along the moor road. ‘Don’t try to change my mind, because last night I could think of nothing else. Even today, while scrubbing piles of dirty clothes, Mr Newton’s face was uppermost in my thoughts. You must see, I’ll love no other. If I don’t go now, tonight, I’ll never look at anyone as long as I live.’ Laughing nervously, she went on, ‘Take your love, for instance, this Bruar of yours, here you are with complete strangers, you take your life in your hands for sure. Not knowing if he’s alive or dead, you have left familiar ground to search for him. If that’s not blind faith, then I don’t know what is.’
    She wanted to tell her about the photograph, but the story was too long. ‘I am a married woman, Lucy. I search for my husband, who I believe is a casualty of war. Somewhere in the south of this land he waits. By the word of a Highland seer’s spirit, I fear he has a sort of sleeping sickness. I feel his heart beating at night when I sleep. Please try to understand, we walked our paths as children side by side, we were meant for each other. Your man is married, he and his wife share children. To top it all, he’s gentry, not your kind. A match like that will haunt you both. Is it worth causing all the suffering to the quarry families, to your Mam?’
    ‘What if Bruar is dead, eh? Say one day you find him. What if he has already passed on? Never woke up from this so-called sleeping sickness? What will you do then?’ Lucy by now was showing signs of fear and anger; she rose from her stone seat and gripped Megan tightly by the shoulders as she repeated her questions.
    ‘I shall find the money to take his remains home, and bury him beside his proud family at the Parbh Lighthouse. Then I shall spend what’s left of my life tending his grave.’
    The severity of Lucy’s questioning settled a doubt she’d long put into the farthest corner of her mind. Never would she have continued with her quest, if her instincts had not told her that Bruar was alive and waiting. No, she’d not fill her head with such negativity, never.
    Lucy sat down, apologised and went on, now in a quieter tone of voice. ‘There is something I failed to tell you. We have no choice and must go away together.’ For a moment she hesitated, then continued, ‘Mr Newton is being blackmailed.’ She shuffled her feet, closed her eyes and waited for a response.
    ‘Somebody