“I have business with the man of the house, woman. Tell him the carpenter he sent for awaits.”
“He sent for no carpenter.”
“I’ll talk with the husband, Winnie.”
I gasped. Unless a shortening of Winifred, on our island that was a name called to unknown peddlers’ children and stray dogs. “Go away. We have no need for a carpenter.”
“You’ll go awaken him, I think. And you do have need, I can see.”
I beat the iron against the stones to sound threatening. “Go away, sir.”
He knocked again and the door fell in at my feet with a great dusty whomp. He said, “It seems you are in muckle need of a carpenter,” as he stepped in. His huge body emphasized the small room, half taken with the loom, my table and chair between me and him, my back to the fireplace.
I drew myself up and held out the iron. “You have not been invited. Now go on with you.” I backed against the fireplace, the terror of my last moments filling me with desperate strength. “I will not be taken easily.”
He looked about and made out that I was alone. “There was notice in Boston that Miss Talbot on Carnegie Farm had need of a woodsman. I am he. I have come with my son. Because you claimed your man asleep, I’ve waited here on your doorstep for over an hour. Since there is no man about, I’d speak to you.”
There were two of them? My throat went dry so that I could not speak. Gray clouds swam before my eyes. “Get out,” I said.
When I awoke I was outside, lying on the granite stone that made my threshold, while some other man fanned my face with a piece of a ragged woolen cape.
They muttered some strange syllables to each other, and then the younger of them came from my house with a cup of water. I was afraid he would dash it upon my face but instead he dipped his dirty fingers into it and drew a cross upon my forehead and another on my bodice. Pushing them away, I scrambled to my feet. “I say, sir. Stop that. Let go.” I had dropped the kettle and saw with a twinge that it had a dent on one side now. I picked it up, still hot, and took the iron poker and swung it at him. Patience’s words of long ago came from my mouth, “Back away from me, man, or I shall tear out your hair and cut you up for the sharks!” Then I added on my own, looking at the poker in my hand, menacing it toward the younger man. “And put out your eyes!”
At that, both men appeared so startled they dropped their hands, looked at each other, and the old man began to laugh first, carrying the younger one along in his mirth. He laughed more and more heartily, tears rolling down his cheeks, leaving clean streaks. “Well and aye, that’s a fine way for a gentlewoman to talk! It’s a Lowland rebel we have come to serve, Cullah, my boy!”
The young one’s laughter making it hard to speak, he blurted, “You’ve led us to the wrong house, Pa. Lady Spencer told us it was peerage we was to work for. Is this Granuaile or Ann Bonny we have found? Some Campbell witch?”
I laughed not. “Get off my doorstep,” I said, “or you will see how a lady may defend herself if need be.”
The ugly man set down a crate he had fixed with rope and sash upon his back as he bent to retrieve his Monmouth cap, much worn and greasy. That was proof he had been pressed aboard a ship at one time, I believed. The crate seemed heavy, near the size of a coffin, for it spanned from above his head to his knees. The younger fellow carried another nearly its size, with a broadaxe lashed to the side of it. Over one shoulder he had a leathern pouch. I stammered and said, “How would I know you meant to work when you break down a door?”
The older man said, “’Twas not a door but a failure that was knocked upon, and it wouldn’t take more’n a birdie to do’t again.” The younger one then handed me my house cap, the white linen kerchief I wore. I had not known it fell, and embarrassed, I dropped the poker, set down the kettle, put the linen on, my cheeks hot and tears rushing.
The younger man said, “Were you going to put out our eyes with that?”
Pressing my teary face against the corner of my elbow, I went to the door. Although I pushed it into place each night, I had never had to lift it from the ground. It was heavy. “I shall thank you two to put up my door.”
The old man reached down with one hand and lifted the door as if it had been a leaf. “Your ladyship, we are but yours to command.” Then he burst into laughter again.