“Ye’re working hard, Robbie.”
“Aye, Mollie. Someone’s got to clear a trail, and Ian’s too busy with yon lassie to be bothered.”
She smiled. “And why should ye it matter to ye, Rob, if Ian is busy with yon lassie?”
He shrugged. “Ian has work to do. He’d be better off if he got to it.”
Mollie laughed softly. “Ye’re jealous, Robbie MacFarlane. You are!”
“I’m not. Why should I be?” Rob snorted.
“I saw the way ye looked at her this morning, Rob, and I’ll wager she saw it too. Have ye told her how ye feel about her?”
“There’s nothing to tell, Mollie,” he said, tossing the spade into a drift. “I barely know her, and I have no feelings for the lass, other than feelin’ sorry for her and wishing to help her find her friend.”
“Aye, and if she was old and fat and ugly you’d no doubt want to help her then, too?”
“I would, aye.”
“Mmm.” Mollie paused a moment, and fidgeted with her shawl. “Ye know, now that we know for certain that Sarah is dead, it does free your brother up to marry again.”
Rob nodded. “Aye, and your point, Mollie?”
She arched her brows at him. “Perhaps yon stranger won’t want to go back to Charleston any time soon. She may find a reason to stay on here at the Ridge.”
Rob laughed. “You think Ian will want to marry her, is that it?”
Mollie merely looked at him.
“Mollie, I dinna think that will happen. She’s even more stubborn than yourself.”
“And what’s that got to do with any of it?”
“Ian’s a good man, Mollie, but he’s not a terribly strong one, aye? He needs a woman who will stand back and let him be in charge of things. A woman who will make him act like a man. That’s why Sarah wasn’t much good for him. She never bothered to stand up to him.”
Mollie shook her head. “I think you’re wrong, Robbie. Ian needs a woman strong enough for him to lean on without his knowing it. He doesna’ want to be in charge, really. He likes havin’ someone who will make the decisions so he doesna’ have to.”
He looked at her, startled. “By the Saints, Mollie! If I didna’ know better I’d think you loved the fool. You do, don’t ye?”
She glanced back to the house quickly. “I dinna think he’ll ever have me.”
Rob thought for a moment. He supposed it was only natural that some feeling would develop between Mollie and Ian. As he had pointed out to his brother only the night before, they were practically man and wife in any case. Furthermore, a woman like Mollie Duncan would be good for Ian. She might make a man out of him yet.
“Ye could ask him,” suggested Rob.
“Ask him? To marry me?” Mollie was horrified.
“Or ye could just tell him to. He’d be too frightened to refuse.”
She laughed. “Ah, Robbie, ye always know how to make a lady feel better. Now what are ye to do about the lass in the house?”
“Nothing to be done, Mollie,” he said firmly. “I have things to do that dinna concern her.”
“Hmph! And what sort o’ things might those be?”
“I mean to sell my interest in The Lady Meg, for one thing.”
“Robbie! Are you certain?”
“And why not?” he argued. “I have no desire to turn pirate and run royal blockades. I am tired of a life at sea, Mollie. I want to live off the land, and stay in one place, like Ian has done. Perhaps begin a wee tobacco crop of my own, and have some cattle and some sheep. Some nice fat ewes would do well here in these mountains, aye? And any self-respecting MacFarlane should have cows on his land.”
Mollie sighed. “It does sound as though ye’ve given it some thought.”
“I have. Ian farms his place with no one’s help – exceptin’ yours, of course, Mollie – and does a fine job of it, and Ian is lazy! A man that works as hard as I do would make a fine success of farming!”
There was a noise behind them, and Rob turned. Cam and Ian had come out of the house. Hamish toddled through the snowdrifts, pausing to eat a handful or two here and there. Cam had bundled him up tightly in every layer of clothing she could find. She was similarly attired, and was wearing her long leather coat over two skirts and a pair of Ian’s shirts. Charlie sniffed eagerly in the snow.
Cam shivered as she exited the house. At least the wind had stopped, and the sun was finally out. Give it another three months, and I just might be warm again! She glanced up and saw Rob quickly look away from Mollie. So that’s what’s going on… Cam smiled broadly at Mollie, who gave her a tentative grin.
“So, when can I start hunting for Wanda?”
“Wanda?” asked Mollie. “Ah, your missing friend. I dinna think we’ll be lookin’ for anyone in this snow. Mayhap when it melts ye can do some searchin’.”
“When it melts? When will that be?”
They all stared at her like she had sprouted horns and a tail. Finally Ian spoke. “Beggin’ your pardon, lassie, but bein’ from Charleston ye must not have had much experience with snow. It melts when it’s ready to melt, ye ken?”
Cam shook her head in frustration. She kept forgetting that she was in a different time. There was no Weather Channel to watch, no CNN, no six o’clock news with Doppler radar to tell her what was happening. She was in a world where everyone got information by word of mouth, and where it could take weeks, or even months, to receive news. Likewise, the only way to tell when the snow would melt was to wait for it to happen.
“So it could be spring before I can go anywhere?”
“Aye, it could well be,” admitted Mollie. “But ye’re welcome to stay here as long as ye wish. Is she not, Ian?”
Ian broke into a wide grin. “Aye, that she is.”
Cam watched Hamish waddle through the drifts. She could easily find herself cooped in this house for the next three months with this family. Ian practically drooled every time he looked at her, and Rob apparently had decided he disliked her, now that he was back at home. At least she had Mollie to keep her company. Nonetheless, it was going to be a long winter. Thank goodness for the stories.
Every night, after the dishes from supper were cleared away, Mollie told a story. She had a musical lilt to her voice, and Cam loved to listen to her speak. Although she had been in the Colonies more than half her life, Mollie still spoke with the rich dialect of her native Highlands.
“Tell the one about old Gabby McNab,” pleaded Ian. “Tis a fine scary tale for a windy night such as this.”
“Aye,” agreed Robert from his chair by the fire. “Gabby McNab is a good one.”
Mollie looked shyly at Cam. “Would ye like to hear about old Gabby?”
Cam blinked. “Um, okay. Who was Gabby McNab?”
“He was a piper,” blurted out Ian, “an’ a greedy ol’ gomerel, at that!”
She laughed. “I’d love to, Mollie, if you don’t mind telling it.”
“Not at all, ‘twas one of my Da’s favorites, ye ken, an’ he’s the one who taught me the telling.” Mollie sighed, and Cam saw her pull her knitting from the basket by the fire. As she told her stories each night, she would knit, the clicking needles moving in time like a metronome to the sound of her voice. “Robbie, be a dear and pass me the blue yarn, would ye? Thank you.”
She looped the yarn around one of the skewer-like needles, and began to click. Cam sat under a blanket, Hamish curled up in her lap, and closed her eyes to listen.
“A long time ago, in the borderlands of Scotland, there was a man called Gabby McNab. Gabby was a piper, he was, and he traveled all about to different villages. Sometimes, when he ran out o’ money, he would earn a few pennies by fixin’ things, pots and pans and the like, with a wee bag of tools he carried at his belt. He would play his pipes for the folk at different inns, and the keepers would let him bed down for the night. Old Gabby was quite miserly, though, and never spent his money if he didna have to. His tartan was faded and frayed, and covered in stains
from where he’d been sleepin’ in the heather, and his boots werena’ really much good at all, ye ken, for they were made of old strips of rags, and sometimes his clarty old big toe would poke through where the cloth was worn.
“One night, it began to snow on the moors, and old Gabby found himself soaked through to his bones with the cold. His feet were near frozen in their old ragged boots, and he hoped and prayed he’d find some shelter soon. As he made his way down a hillside, he stumbled over something hard. Thinkin’ it was a log, and not wanting the next traveler to topple over it as he had, Gabby took it upon himself to move the log out of the road. But it wasna a log at all. ‘Twas a body.”
Cam heard Ian’s quick intake of breath. She opened one eye surreptitiously and noticed Rob making the sign of the cross over his chest.
“Old Gabby McNab was frightened to be sure, and was about to run away. Then he noticed that the body was finely dressed, as a merchant would be, and was wearing a pair of fine leather boots, with a ruff of fur about the top. Gabby thought about his own frozen feet, and said to himself, Well, if anyone is to stumble across the fellow, who would know if he were wearing boots when he died or not? So Gabby hoisted the dead man’s legs up, and began to try to pull off the boots.”
Click click, clickety click, went the knitting needles. Cam shivered, despite herself. The wind was picking up outside, and the clapboard walls of the house creaked occasionally.
“Try as he might, he couldna pull the man’s boots off, because of course the merchant had been laying there a while and the boots were frozen to his feet. Then a wicked thought came to old Gabby, and he opened up his wee bag o’ tools. He pulled out his little saw, and greedy as he was, sawed the man’s legs off just above the boots! He took the boots – feet and all, mind ye – and rolled them up in a sack and tucked them under his arm.
“Now, off in the distance a ways, he saw a light, and made his way there in a hurry, for the snow was now blowing about even more fiercely. Gabby knocked on the door, and a farmer answered. The farmer looked at dirty old Gabby, and said, Ye canna sleep in my house, for you are a filthy old tinker, but ye may bed in my barn amongst the kine in the hay. Gabby took the man’s offer, and made himself a nest of hay in the barn. But before he laid down for the night, he unwrapped the fine leather boots and placed them up under one o’ the farmer’s cows, thinking that the heat from the cow’s body would thaw the feet out so that he could wear the boots in the morning.”
Click, click, click-click-click.
“When the sun rose the next morning, old Gabby looked at the boots, and sure enough, they were thawed out. He could see the bloody feet inside them, and being a bit of a joker, he wrapped the feet up in his old ragged boots, and placed them in front of the cow. Then, wicked old Gabby smeared a bit of the blood on the cow’s mouth as she chewed her hay. Gabby, wearing his new leather boots, hid himself away, and when the farmer came out in the morning, well, ye can imagine the shock he must’ve felt!
Rob nudged Ian. “As if a cow would gobble up a man down to his feet, aye?”
“Wheesht!” snapped Mollie. “Now, the farmer and his wife were very upset, for the cow was the only one that gave them milk, and they were afraid that if people heard she had eaten a traveler that the cow would be killed. So they took the bloody feet, wrapped in the rags, and buried them under a rowan tree. That night, as the farmer and his wife sat down to dinner, old Gabby in his fine new fur-trimmed boots crept out of his hiding spot and stood under the rowan tree. He placed his pipes to his lips and began to play, a haunting and strange tune, and the farmer and his wife looked out the window and saw old Gabby there! Thinking it was a ghost, they screamed and ran out of the house and over a hill, and they were never heard from again.
“Now, Gabby thought this a mighty fine joke, and so he went into the house and sat at the table, where he found the farm couple’s dinner all laid out. He ate as much as he could, cheese and meat and soup, and more whiskey than Gabby McNab could drink. Finally, having had his fill, he laid down in the farmer’s bed to sleep. But then, he heard a knock at the door.”
“Ooh,” said Ian. “This is my favorite part!”
“Be quiet,” grumbled his brother. “Let Mollie tell it, aye?”
“And when Gabby answered the door, there was a small man standing there, looking very cold and damp. He looked at Gabby and said, Can I have a wee bit of hospitality? Perhaps a bed for the night and a dram o’ whiskey? Gabby, thinking of his own recent good fortune, said, Come on in, then, poor fellow, and warm your feet by the fire.
“And then the man looked up at him and began to laugh, a deep hollow laugh that sent chills down old Gabby McNab’s spine. I’d like that very much, said the man, but as ye can see, I dinna have any.”
Cam’s eyes popped wide open. It was more than a little while before she could fall asleep that night.
December 14, 1775 –
I have spent the past weeks teaching Miss Clark how to do things she seems to take for granted. I located some dress patterns, and she has become proficient enough to make herself two new skirts, although she continues to wear Ian’s shirts, which she claims are “nice and roomy.” Ian and Rob are building a new cabin further up the ridge, and are gone almost every day. When they return at night, their clothes are frequently torn and dirty, and Miss Clark has spent a good deal of time mending. I suspect that, being from a city, she is used to a more disposable lifestyle.
However, she has learned how to prepare meat for Storage in the smokehouse, and once again the rich smell of ham permeates the house. For some reason she still cannot bring herself to slaughter and clean the pigs, though, and leaves that to me. She has gone out every morning to milk Ian’s cows, and has assigned several of them rather odd names. I have taught her how to churn butter, and though her first attempts were Most Disastrous, after a while she managed to produce a substance that was at least edible. She has also learned how to bake bread.
I believe there are still a few things to which she is having trouble adjusting. Many nights she is too tired to go down to the cellar and bathe, and she complains when she finds herself going a few days at a time without washing. Also, when I took her aside and showed her where the supply of cotton sanitary rags were kept, she visibly cringed. As if women don’t have the monthlies in Charleston! She has an odd little brush which she insists on using on her teeth every morning and night, and I have some soda which she says she finds effective for scrubbing out her mouth. She does have remarkably nice teeth for a woman of thirty-two. Perhaps I shall begin using her little blue brush as well.
Cam discovered that there was a lot of work to do on a farm, and it seemed that a good deal of the projects fell to the women, because Ian and Robert were always off doing something else.
“Now, first ye must make the lye,” announced Mollie, leading Cam out to one of the woodsheds. “You’ll have not done this before, aye?”
Cam shook her head, and Mollie clucked her tongue at her.
“Well, tis no’ difficult, it just takes a wee bit of time, and it stinks something terrible, ye ken?”
Mollie pointed to a barrel, and Cam peered inside it. The bottom had been removed and replaced with a flat stone that had a groove chiseled into it. The stone, in turn, rested upon a small pile of rocks. As Cam watched, Mollie placed a layer of straw and small sticks in the bottom of the barrel.
“Now, we must add the ashes.”
Cam was amazed by Mollie’s physical strength as she hauled a large pot to the barrel, and dumped in a heavy layer of wood ash atop the straw. A gray cloud floated up out of the barrel’s open top, and Cam sneezed heartily.
“Watch ye dinna get any in your eye. Burns like the devil, it does.”
Mollie and Cam spent the morning slowly pouring pitchers of water over the ashes, until a thick brownish liquid seeped out of the bottom of the barrel, through the groove in the stone, and into a heavy clay jug that Mollie had placed beneath. While Cam continued to pour water into the barrel
, Mollie set up a large kettle outside and built a fire.
“This is for rendering the tallow, ye ken?”
“Tallow?” asked Cam blankly.
“Aye, fat from the cows. We save it for a few months, boil it up with some water, and then make soap with it.”
Cam stifled a gagging noise. She had become fond of the cows, despite her earlier trepidations, and hated the thought of one of them being melted down for soap. Although, she supposed, the cow probably didn’t mind by this point.
The smell of the boiling tallow was enough to send Cam to the nearest bushes to be sick. Mollie let the process continue throughout the day, and when she went to serve dinner, Cam had to force herself to eat. The odor was still noticeable inside the walls of the house, and Cam had to content herself with eating only biscuits for supper. The idea of consuming beef while that smell invaded her nostrils was horrifying.
By the next morning, the tallow had cooled and was floating on the top of the kettle in a gelatinous yellow glob. Mollie instructed Cam to skim it off and place it in another large kettle.
“This is disgusting,” she muttered.
Mollie overheard. “Aye, well, think of trying to bathe without it, if ye find a wee bit of fat so foul, then.”
They added the lye from the woodshed to the tallow, and set the kettle to boiling again. By the end of the day, a frothy, gooey mass was floating at the top. Cam peered into the kettle doubtfully.
“How do you make it hard, so you can chop it up into bars?” she asked.
“Aha!” smiled Mollie. “That’s the trick, aye? You add some salt to it and it’ll firm up as nice as ye please.”
Cam frowned. “I thought salt was hard to come by.”
“Hard to – oh, I ken what ye mean. Aye, tis very dear but I’ve been saving some pennies here and there, and I had one of the Kerr boys fetch me a sack of it when he went into town last time.” She scooped a large quantity of salt into the kettle. Cam noticed it was in large chunks, rather than the fine-grained table salt she was accustomed to.
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