walked stiffly back the way she had come.
The Cairngorm Brooch
I t was already evening, way past milking time, when she reached the pasture. The little black cow was bawling. In a few swift movements, Mary untied the rope that had tethered it to a broom bush, yanking it impatiently. She made a cursory inspection of the ewe and its lamb and gave a sharp whoo-ee to the rest of the sheep and the goats, neglecting her usual words of affection and encouragement. She all but ran along the path to where the Urquhart cottage lay snuggled into a hollow of Carroch Hill. Moo-ing and maa-ing and baa-ing indignantly, bumping into each other along the way, the animals trotted after her.
With that same speed and impatience, Mary settled the disgruntled beasts in the byre, milked the cow, and carried the wooden pail to the low, hollowed stone by the cottage door. Hastily she murmured the words of greeting to the
bodach
,the house fairy whose presence brought good fortune to the family. She poured his milk into the stone for him, nervously smoothed the rough blue linen of her skirt, adjusted her shawl around her shoulders, took a deep breath, and went inside.
The cottage was small and its single room was dark and thick with the peat smoke that rose from the round hearth in its centre towards the chimney in the low roof. Mingling with the smoke were the odours of the boiled oats and kale keeping warm in the large iron pot that hung over the fire, and the cheese dripping from its cloth into the sink near the room’s single window.
Mary always felt half smothered by the dark closeness of the cottage but, on this evening, she was too perturbed to notice.
“Slan leat,”
she greeted her mother, her father, and her sister Jeannie, as though she were not bothered in any way, and sat down at her place at the board table.
“Did Sally have her lamb, then?” Mary’s mother rose from her place and dished kale and oatmeal porridge onto a wooden plate and poured a cup of buttermilk.
“She did that. A fine bit of a ewe lamb.” Mary bowed her head, said her grace, and tried to eat. The talk was of the day’s ploughing and spinning, of whether or not Patrick Grant was going to be able to manage his rent, of Jeannie’scoming marriage to Johnny Fraser, but Mary did not listen. It was such a great thing, such a terrible thing she was going to ask. Suddenly she set her spoon on the table with a bang.
“I will be needing the cairngorm brooch.” She almost shouted, she was so nervous. Someone—Jeannie or Mary’s mother—gasped. Quietly, his face showing no emotion, her father said, “Mairi, I believe you spoke but I did not quite make out what it was you said.”
Mary clenched her hands at her sides. Her pale face flushed but she spoke as evenly as her father. “I said, Father, that I will be needing the cairngorm brooch, it that lies wrapped in its linen in the kist.” She nodded towards the large wooden chest that stood in the far corner of the room. Again there was the sound, softer this time, of sharply indrawn breath.
The brooch was a large, flat silver circlet, marked in an ancient Celtic pattern, the cairngorm stone in its centre the clear, peaty-brown colour of a Highland stream. The brooch had been given to a James Urquhart three hundred years earlier, after the battle of Flodden Field, because he had saved the life of his chief. It was handsome and the only possession of real value the Urquharts had.
Her father’s usually ruddy face was white against his fire-red hair. His words dropped slowly, one by one, into the silent room.
“And what might you think you will be needing the brooch for?”
“It is for passage money.”
“Och, Mairi, what is this?” cried her mother.
“It is to fetch Duncan away home.”
“Mairi, you cannot—”
“Let the lass speak.” James Urquhart had not taken his eyes from Mary’s face.
“He promised he would come and he did not.” Mary’s low voice rose with every impassioned word
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