Isle of Tears Read Free

blame.
    ‘I’ve good news as well,’ Agnes announced with a small, proud smile.
    Donal helped himself to more meat. ‘Oh aye, and what’s that?’
    ‘Oor Isla has become a woman.’
    ‘Ah, Mam!’ Isla groaned, blushing wildly.
    Donal raised his eyebrows. ‘Hoots! We should be celebratin’, then.’
    Jamie and Jean exchanged mystified glances.
    ‘She disnae look any different tae us,’ Jamie said, perplexed. He turned to Isla. ‘Why are ye a woman?’
    She hesitated, then shot a desperate, pleading look at her mother.
    ‘A body changes as it grows older,’ Agnes replied vaguely, now regretting her announcement. ‘And oor Isla’s has, er…done that.’
    ‘But how?’ Jean demanded. ‘She’s got a pimple on her chin. Is that what ye mean?’
    ‘Aye!’ Agnes said with relief.
    ‘Well, I’m no’ goin’ tae be a woman if it means big red pimples on ma face,’ Jean declared. ‘And she’s been awful crabbit as well.’
    ‘I have no’,’ Isla snapped.
    Jean made a see-what-I-mean face.
    But Niel caught Isla’s eye, and nodded in acknowledgement. He had shot up four inches himself in the past four months, was sporting wispy hairs in some very private places, and had a vague idea of what had happened to Isla, although he wasn’t going to mention it aloud, and certainly not at the table.
    Isla smiled gratefully and turned her attention back to her dinner, hoping that Jamie and Jean had lost interest in the subject of her ‘womanhood’.
    In case they hadn’t, Agnes changed the subject. ‘I couldnaefind Rosie this morning. Ye didnae see her when ye were oot and aboot?’
    The twins shook their heads.
    Donal wiped a piece of bread around his plate to collect the last of the gravy. ‘She’s probably wandered off up the hill again. Or gone doon the other side intae the glen. I think she likes the grass doon there.’
    ‘Well, I’d like ye all tae go and find her after dinner,’ Agnes said. ‘She’ll be wanting milking by now.’
    ‘I’m helping Da,’ Niel said quickly.
    Donal countered, ‘Aye, well, I’m only replacing those loose shingles on the roof this afternoon. And I dinnae want Isla and the weans oot and aboot by themselves, so ye can go and keep an eye on them, eh?’
    Although he didn’t really want to traipse around after the twins, Niel tried not to look too pleased with himself. His brother and sisters were unlikely to get lost as they were only going up the hill, but there was a possibility that they might encounter, say, a Maori scouting party, so this was a real show of faith from his father, especially as the threat of danger was very real.
    There had been unrest last year over the coveted Peka Peka Block at Waitara, north of New Plymouth, six hundred acres of prime land straddling the Waitara River and owned by the local Maori tribe, Te Ati Awa. When a minor chief, Te Teira, had tried to sell the block to the government, his elder and supporter of the new Maori King movement, Wiremu Kingi, opposed the sale and occupied the land in protest.
    As a result, government surveyors had been denied access, and two weeks ago martial law had been declared in Taranaki. Two companies of the 58th and 65th Regiments already in the area were now on full alert, the Volunteer Rifles had been stood to arms, and the militia called up. But not Donal McKinnon, much to Agnes’s relief; because Braeburn was more than twenty-five miles from the New Plymouth police office, Donal was exempt. New Plymouth itself was preparing for a siege.
    More alarming still were the rumours that local Maori were readying for war and building fighting pa. A passing traveller last week had said that many settler families were moving into town, too frightened to stay on their isolated blocks of land and perhaps face the marauding Maori on their own. Apparently, the McBrides had already gone. The level of panic in New Plymouth was intense, because the town was so cut off from other European settlements. If the imperial