Beyond Reason Read Free

babe.’
    ‘A-ah, I see….’ She frowned. ‘All right, I’ll get along to your cottage. Take your time, Billy.’ She sensed he would be better left to make his own pace. She didn’t know he had already spent the day fishing.
    She had been in the cottage a good ten minutes before Billy dragged himself through the door. She knew by the way he leaned against it that he was more in need of her attention than his wife.
    She filled a bowl with water from the kettle and added cold water from the bucket, which Mary had filled from the village pump earlier in the day. She carried it to the stone slab in thecorner of the room.
    ‘Now get ye out o’your wet clothes and get warmed up, lad, or you’ll catch your death. I’ve seen plenty o’naked men so dinna mind me. I’ll make ye a hot drink and a bite to eat. Is there a bed doon the ben?’
    ‘There’s the sofa.’ The little cottage, like most of the others, consisted of a but and a ben with a thick, thatched roof. They lived and slept in one end, but the far room, the ben, Mary kept with pride. She had furnished it with his mother’s horsehair sofa and a polished chest which had belonged to her own mother, as well as two bright rag rugs which they had made together during the first winter of their marriage. Now they were planning to make it into a room for the children. They planned to have several, for it saddened them that neither of them had living siblings.
    Mistress Cummins eyed him shrewdly and sighed. He had always been a shy laddie.
    ‘You make haste, now. I’ll busy myself in there and find ye a blanket or two frae Mary’s chest. Ye look ready to drop. Food and a sleep will put some life into ye.’
    ‘But Mary…?’
    ‘She’ll be all the better when she can stop worrying about you.’
    ‘Mistress Cummins is right, Billy,’ Mary called weakly from the box bed. ‘The pains have eased. I’ll be fine in a wee while. You get warm and dry.’
    ‘Aye, be quick and get out o’ your wet clothes, laddie!’ Mistress Cummins urged again, bustling away into the other room. She was a hardy woman but the room struck chill in spite of the fine spell of weather, which had just deserted them. Most of the cottages near the shore were inclined to be damp and the small windows did not let in much sunshine. Tonight the rain was finding its way down the wide chimney onto the hearth, bringing spots of black soot with it. She was sure Billy’s weak chest would be the worse for this night’s work.
    The following morning, it was her own patient who was causing her more concern than Billy. She was tired herself and she knew Mary was exhausted. All night, the pains kept coming but they seemed to be leading nowhere. Things were not asstraightforward as Agnes Cummins had expected. She suspected the fall had set the baby on its way before the passages were ready.
    Lucy Hughes looked in from next door.
    ‘I’m pleased to see ye, lass. Could you send one of your bairns to fetch my Polly? I was at a birthing on the other side o’ the glen before Billy came for me. Polly will sit with Mary for an hour or two while I snatch a wee rest. I’ll be needed later.’
    ‘You think it’s going to be a long haul, then?’ Lucy asked in concern. Agnes Cummins nodded gravely, but she put a finger to her lips, nodding warningly towards the box bed.
    ‘I’ll take wee Andrew to my ain hoose for now,’ Lucy offered, ‘but when Billy wakens ye’ll not be wanting him under your feet either. Send him off to the dominie’s house. He can take the wee laddie with him. Then I’ll come in and sit wi’ Mary while ye take your rest.’
    Agnes bit her lip, hesitating. Lucy was not the cleanest of women, but she was always willing to help. Her own daughter, Polly, had plenty to do with five bairns of her own. Reluctantly she agreed.
    ‘Just an hour will see me right. ’Twas a big day yesterday and I hadna expected to be up all night as well.’
    Billy had spent a restless night shivering and