Before much time had passed, I heard the familiar squeak of the door hinges. The Indian was in the house. No one followed him. From where I stood, I could see him moving with the stealth of a cat, listening, sniffing the air. He looked into the pot of beans on the hearth. He moved the cask of dried fish from where I had left it, and even peered at the cupboard, so that I drew away lest he see the reflection of my eye through the hole. He did not go up the stairs. He stopped at my spinning wheel and rotated the wheel with one hand, jumping back as it made its ticking sound. From the basket on the floor he took a roll of woolen thread, the finest I had made, and pushed that into his waistband. Then he walked out the door, leaving it ajar, the children huddled together. I ran to the window to see him dart into shadows by the barn and from there into the woods.
Later, when I got the children from the cupboard, I tried to cheer them by making sport of any robber who came but to steal yarn.
Brendan said, “He’s going to make a braw nightcap for his bairnies.”
Gwenny added, “Do Indians know how to knit and tat, Ma?”
We laughed. But I asked Cullah to buy us a pistol, and to teach me how to fire it.
*
That September old Barnabus died. He was found stretched out on his floor by someone peeping in the window, as if he had simply chosen a strange place for a nap on a warm afternoon, hands clasped upon his chest, a faint smile opening his lips. Cullah and I gave ten shillings for him to be buried beside the wife whom he so loved. We tried to get the man’s huge dog to come with us, but when we got to the edge of town the beast took off into the woods and we could not find him though we searched an hour.
That night following our burying Barnabus, we lay together for the first time since our poor infants had died. I felt little pleasure from it as I had before. He stopped and rolled over, staring at the ceiling. “Wife?” he said.
“Yes, husband?”
“My heart is not in it. I cannot.”
“Mine is so blackened, too, that I want to lie near you, nothing more.”
After so long a time I thought he had fallen asleep, he said, “Resolute? I want to read more than my name. I want you to teach me to read.”
I leaned upon one elbow and looked in his direction, though the room was too dark to see him at all. Leading with my lips pursed, I planted a kiss, surprised to place it on his eyebrow. “If you wish it, I will do it. I will become a teacher,” I said, and patted his beard, which had grown quite stout. “Although if you are to be my pupil, you must be sheared. I find too much wool does make the mind linty.”
After a moment of silence he drew in a breath and laughed a single loud hurrah, following it with a ripping gale of laughter. “Perhaps I’ll tie bonny ribbons about the mat so that it tickles my lady’s fancy.”
I laughed, too. Then I said, “I insist on shaven pupils, Mr. MacLammond.”
He reached out into the darkness and patted my arm. “Then if it cannot be skinned, I shall at least cut it nicely. Will that suit you, Lady Lamont?”
I followed his tease. “Aye, Sir Knight of the Realm, it will.”
“You will have to let me do the learning of it in bits here and there. Slip me a paper with something upon it. I do not want my children to know their pa cannot read.”
I suspected they already knew. “Discretion shall be our word.”
“I thought our word was ‘sword.’”
“Oh. Oh, yes, it was.”
“I love those old days, my Resolute, those days before we knew such pain and grief. We have lost them forever before we realized how happy we were.”
“Aye.”
“Would they could come again, I should never again be angry for a farthing shorted on my bill. I should never again curse the cold or rain or the heat of summer. If I could have them back, I would suffer no sadness upon any of our hearts.”
“Oh, Eadan. I do love you with all my heart. I love you more than I knew I could love anyone.” I lay back down upon my pillow. “I fear I shall spoil our children now.”
“Aye. It matters not. Life is short and must be lived. We must not let them become lazy or cruel, but beyond that, give them what they want.”
After a long handful of moments, I said, “Eadan? Give me a child.”
“What?”
“Give me a child, husband. I beg you. Give me a child.” I placed my hand upon his chest, right above his heart.
He felt in the darkness for my face and kissed me slowly, tenderly. “Is that your wish, wife?”
“Most earnestly.”
“I am but yours to command, then.”
CHAPTER 26
Michaelmas 1750
At last, in 1750 before I had turned thirty, Brendan was thirteen and Gwyneth was eight, I gave birth to another boy child. We named him Benjamin after our other Benjamin. That year, too, Brendan went to apprentice with his father and with that, Cullah confided to me, he apprenticed not only as a woodsmith but as a Highland warrior. Cullah slowed his business to spend two hours every day away from the shop with Brendan, teaching him Gaelic songs and charms, and how to fight with everything from a battle-axe to his bare hands. The boy grew quiet, taller, and along with a wisp of dark hair on his chin, a seriousness came to his face as the boyish joy left it.