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Bruar's Rest

Bruar's Rest

Titel: Bruar's Rest Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Jess Smith
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and kissed, then soon they too had gone. Before parting, Anna whispered, ‘Once a friend, always one. When me and my Tate Boswell meet at Appleby, I’ll be wanting to introduce you, so make sure you find a way of getting there come next June.’

E LEVEN

     
    U nder the watchful eye of her old friend and following strict instructions, their wagon, the last to leave, was harnessed and yoked for the open road. Mother Foy’s was, without doubt, one of the sturdiest horse-drawn wagons ever to fill an English country lane. Built by both herself and her late husband, it was every bit a labour of love. However, unable now as she once was to hold the leather reins between her arthritic fingers, she asked Megan to take them. But she hadn’t a clue how to drive. Oh yes, horses she loved, and they responded likewise, but this was a different matter. At first the poor horse was drawn up, then trotted on and so forth, until the old woman managed to exert a form of verbal control (of which a large part was expletives) and was able to teach Megan the basic skill of straight line driving.
    ‘God, whoever you are, keep our way on a line without bends or hills, and we might just make it,’ prayed the new driver.
    Three long weeks later, after much swearing and sweating, the area where they were to winter settle appeared on the horizon. In a field edged by a forest on one side and an open plain on the other, they snuggled the wagon into a sheltered spot.
    ‘My man and me came here many times to winter stop. Folks calls it ‘the gorse field’. It’s near enough to village and town for hawking and dukkering [fortune telling]. There’s a farm a mile up the way, nice people run the place who deal in a pound or two of good horse flesh. I know them who own it.’
    ‘Not horses for the slaughter?’ Megan curled her lip in disgust.
    ‘No, racers they be. I’ve heard there’s been many a top runner come from them. If you take yourself there I’m a certain you’d enjoy it, with you liking a horse. Maybe tomorrow when chores are finished, we’ll visit the couple who own the place. In past days I always found a pleasant welcome. Now I have just enough power in these twisted fingers to unharness me dear old grai [horse]. Hold the shaft handles until I’ve finished.’
    Megan learned such a lot from Mother Foy about gypsy ways, and it didn’t take long before she was almost mastering Beth, her shire horse.
    The flat land allowed the horse a freedom seldom seen in Scotland, and when they had stopped for the day Megan would often climb onto its back and ride the large animal as fast as it could go. Shire horses are not usually to be seen galloping with a rider straddled bareback, so when horse and rider took to the open plains it was not a graceful sight: it could be quite comical watching the pair. Beth with her clumsy, skirted hooves shifted clumps of grass in their wake, Megan bounced like a rubber ball on her broad back, hanging on to the thick ginger mane. But someone who was fanciful might have seen it as a pretty painting come to life. While she rode, Mother Foy slept a lot, so Beth the fifteen-year-old shire mare was the only real friend Megan had.
    Because of the recent events in the quarry they decided to keep a low profile. The need to know if Lucy’s avenger had sent Hawen Collins to meet a fate worse than death, or, more to the point, whether the police had decided to pursue and imprison Buckley, was soon eating into the old woman, and she had to know. Sooner or later such news trickles to gypsy ears, though, and one way or the other she’d find out.
    She may have had her own doubts regarding Megan’s talk with Mrs Newton, but she thought best not to question the girl when they were back at Bleak Fell quarry. At night, though, when the pair sat warming themselves in the wagon by the stove, a movement from outside would silence any conversation, sending them to close any small openings in the curtains. However, if Buckley did come seeking to silence Megan, what could defenceless women do—one far too old, the other not a match for that beast?

     
    Time passed and the fear diminished. Megan familiarised herself with the small villages scattered here and there. She hawked long hours, which were fewer now that winter had shortened daylight, and she brought home mere handfuls of pennies. Her old companion taught her tea-leaf reading, palms and fortune-telling. She wasn’t a natural at it, though, and soon doors were

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